Tag: privatisation

Recent months have seen significant movement in South Africa’s rail sector. Developments include early stages of rail privatisation and the domestication of the Luxembourg Rail Protocol (Luxembourg Protocol). South African rail shifts its gears toward privatisation as the government accelerates regulatory and commercial changes.

South Africa relies on a single machine to produce driving license cards, which is downright ludicrous. In November 2021, an electrical fault caused the machine to break down. Repairs took two months, increasing the license backlog by over a million.

Austerity does not need to mean suffering. Cutting public spending is urgent to address South Africa’s growing debt. Delaying cuts will only worsen debt and interest payments, making future cuts more severe. Reducing spending needn’t harm South Africans, as many wasteful expenses can be removed. In 2023, the Democratic Alliance (DA) estimated that the African National Congress (ANC)-led departments wasted around R40 billion in 2022/23 alone.

Siviwe Gwarube is the first Democratic Alliance (DA) member to become Minister of Basic Education; an impressive feat that is fraught with peril. The DA did not nearly accomplish all that it should have after forming a government of national unity (GNU) with the African National Congress (ANC).

While the President has signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) into law, the bean counters at National Treasury have yet to start looking for their excel sheets needed to ensure the NHI is fully costed. The first reason is due to the confusion of objective versus political ideology. The NHI has been touted as introducing “universal healthcare coverage” (UHC).

Nicholas Woode-Smith | Contributing Author  | Free Market Foundation | mail me| Parastatals, state-owned enterprises, and government interference in the economy all contribute to the...

Eskom cannot be trusted with load-limiting, as the same kind of centralisation is what caused the energy crisis in the first place. We will publish a research paper on privatisation later this year, that will set out how best to go about the privatisation of Eskom. This comes as the embattled state-owned enterprise seems to be fumbling from one bad idea to the next as it tries to stabilise power supply.

The cabinet approved a new state-owned enterprise (SOE) plan, which will lays the basis for private equity investment in state companies and listings on the stock exchange. It has already stirred significant debate and discussion – and rightly so, because full or partial privatisation by countries around the world has been met with mixed success.

Zimbabwe and South Africa share a common destiny to electricity supply Armageddon. Both Southern African neighbours and traditional trade partners are currently reeling from unprecedented power shortages, with the scourge looking like it is not dissipating any time soon.

Infrastructure challenges in South Africa are mounting in what is turning out to be a perfect storm. Power cuts, water shortages and potholes are all too common. The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) highlighted these challenges in its 2022 state of infrastructure report that revealed that South Africa is at risk of becoming a “failed state”.