Tag: Mpiyakhe Dhlamini

President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) on 20 June. The speech was filled with rousing language as well as conciliatory offers to work together with members of the opposition. Unfortunately, no new details of his ostensible reform agenda were released, including details of how his dream for South Africa will come about.

Stats SA’s April Statistics of Liquidations and Insolvencies paint a very grim picture. The number of business liquidations increased by 53.1% between April 2018 and April 2019. The number of insolvencies increased by 30.1% between March 2018 and March 2019.

The latest GDP numbers show that the South African economy declined by 3.2% for the first quarter of 2019. This comes after President Ramaphosa announced a R50 billion stimulus package in September 2018. Since that stimulus followed on a decade of stimulus spending instituted since the 2008 global economic crisis, we must now ask whether Minister Pravin Gordhan’s decision to choose stimulus over austerity was the right one.

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) is a crime against the poor of this country as it absolutely forbids them from accepting any compensation below the floor set by government. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that some people who could be working are not employed because of the minimum wage.

In South Africa it is well known that women suffer the brunt of our many socio-economic issues. This is largely how females are viewed across South African culture, rather than as a matter of law. According to the Economic Freedom of the World index, South Africa scores 1.0, the highest possible score, according to the gender adjustment variable.

There is no denying that we live in the most technologically advanced era the Earth has ever seen and this is due to property rights and free trade. Removing restrictions on trade between individuals in a country is important, but removing restrictions on trade between individuals in different countries is arguably even more important given the enormous size of the global market compared to any single country’s domestic market.

The NHI is set to be South Africa’s version of universal healthcare where resources are pooled in order to provide health services for everyone. Apart from the many flaws in the manner in which it is being implemented, a most serious flaw is that it is going to be prohibitively expensive. Scant attention has been paid in the South African public discourse to the structure of the proposed system and the problems inherent therein.

Small business is widely acknowledged as the engine of economic growth in both developing and developed economies. The South African government also recognises this.

Officially, for the 2019/20 financial year, government will not be increasing income taxes. The only taxes set to increase are the indirect taxes: fuel levies, excise duties on alcohol and cigarettes, and the new carbon tax coming into effect on 1 June 2019. With these increases government estimates that it will raise an additional R1.2 billion.

“Black man, you are on your own.” – S Biko. What did Biko mean when he said this? Did he mean that putting people with a black skin colour in power would automatically solve all our problems?