Tag: Zakhele Mthembu

The tragic deaths of children exposed to harmful chemicals from foreign-owned spaza shops have highlighted the need for regulations. As we push for more regulations, we must ensure that we do not harm ourselves in the process. Various legal philosophies shape one’s understanding and interpretation of the law.

Consumer benefits in mergers should be the central consideration when evaluating whether a merger enhances or harms the market for consumers. The Competition Tribunal recently blocked a merger between Maziv and Vodacom, two major players in South Africa's telecommunications sector.

With a newly established government of national unity in South Africa, the criminal justice system remains one of the most crucial areas for any society seeking peace. It would be in the best interest of the new government to direct its executive branch, especially the criminal justice system (Police and Courts), to prioritise violent crimes over other offences.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced that it will impose a 45% import tax on goods that cost R500 or less, imported from China through online retailers such as Shein and Temu. Unions and businesses praise this as a ‘levelling of the playing field’, but for the consumer it simply translates to higher prices.

South Africans have been slowly marching towards serfdom, and unless something drastic changes, this march will continue. With this year’s budget speech on the horizon, in an election year, the country and the world will get a glimpse as to how bad things could be in the short to medium term.

Election season is coming up soon in South Africa, and those with governmental power have started promising jobs to the millions who are unemployed. Yet anyone who has an inkling of economic knowledge would know that the politicians are writing cheques with their mouths, and that they will be unable to cash their actions.

A trade in the commercial sense is a mutually beneficial exchange. With the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement having come into operation in 2021, it would be fitting to remind ourselves of the benefits of free and unfettered trade, especially for the African continent and its people.

The Competition Commission has aroused the ire of mainstream economists and analysts with its latest Essential Food Pricing Monitoring Report for 2021 to 2022. It has charged the maize as well as the meat and poultry markets with ‘excessive pricing’.  This time, even the halls of academia through the likes of Prof. Johan Kirsten of Stellenbosch University, shook in disagreement.

Modern day states are characterised by an implicit admission that everyone who is living under them, consents to be governed by them. Yet when one looks at the world, in any society, there is always a large portion of people who not only disagree with authority but actively did not consent to it by voting differently or not at all. Are the views of these people not important because they represent a minority?

Law has been used as an instrument of terror towards indigenous South Africans. After all the terrorism that saw the displacement of the jurisdiction of aboriginal Black South Africans replaced with the jurisdiction of South Africa was ‘legal’.