Tag: Terrance M. Booysen

Unfettered hate speech lends itself to unintended and severe consequences for social cohesion. We all know that hate speech and free speech are entirely different concepts, yet in South Africa what you can and cannot say as a responsible citizen or public figure remains a divisive issue.

When boards of directors gather to discuss the top risks of an organisation, it may entail matters such as structurally high unemployment, labour unrest, exchange rate volatility, political uncertainty, unmanageable fraud and corruption, threats of new market entrants or even product stagnation. Whilst there are indeed many more topical risks that may be relevant to the nature of the organisation’s business and immediate environment, it is not common for a board to include the threat of their innovation and intellectual property (IP) being marginalised or lost.

The South African Competition Amendment Act 18 of 2018 (‘the Amendment Act’) which was tabled in Parliament in July 2018, and signed into law by President Ramaphosa last month, has been the subject of much debate and comment, especially insofar as it aims to implement far-reaching changes to the currentCompetition Act 89 of 1998 (‘the Competition Act’).

South Africa’s current woes are in large part a result of a large-scale breakdown in ethics (both personal and professional) and good governance practices. One only needs to look at the goings-on at Steinhoff, KPMG, Eskom, SARS and VBS Bank to see the impact that unethical behaviour, large scale looting and unchecked business practices have had on the South African economy and on South Africans, whose confidence in the leadership of this country and those in business is at an all-time low.

Management guru, Peter Drucker, is often quoted as saying, 'If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage [or improve] it'. Constructive feedback is integral to a process of development, growth and improvement, not least in an organisational setting, and especially in the case of boards of directors.

Organisational succession planning, and the associated management and implementation of such plans, has traditionally been viewed as a long-term, deliberate and well-thought-out process.

The media reports are full of such stories; albeit cheating in sports, State capture, wide-scale corruption at governmental, provincial, municipal, parastatal, corporate and the...