In his 2017/18 budget speech, South Africa’s finance minister Pravin Gordhan opted to focus on taxing high income earners to find desperately needed money.
In preparing the 2017 national budget South Africa needs to take heed of warnings that its historical austerity measures are hurting the poor and even costing lives.
The decision to give former Eskom CEO, Brian Molefe, a seat in the country’s parliament comes with the potential to cause great economic pain for South Africa.
South African President, Jacob Zuma, wasted lots of time and space in cheap politicking instead of galvanising South Africans to work together for a better future.
A lot more goes into the making of South Africa’s final national budget than many people realise. The process involves extensive legalities designed to ensure public oversight.
Social welfare budgets have simply not been adequate to plug decades’ worth of under-resourcing, especially in black communities. It’s a good place for government to start giving life to its slogans
South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, promised radical economic transformation in his 2017 state of the nation address. A lot of what he said in support of this promise is alternative facts.
The planting of messages and countering narratives in the media is not new. It’s part and parcel of contemporary politics especially during elections. The internet simply makes an old problem worse.
It is common to reduce the politics of the ANC to a battle between personalities. A closer look suggest that this is a fight between two factions, both of them products of trends in the economy.
South Africa is breathing a sigh of relief after escaping a credit rating downgrade. But there are still serious concerns around structure of the country’s economy and finances.
All eyes are on the next move from President Jacob Zuma after he survived a bid from senior ANC colleagues to remove him. The fallout is expected to be focused on the economic cluster of government.
The fallout at the meeting of South Africa’s governing ANC clearly exposed how the party’s factionalism has spilled over into government. This is likely to paralyse governance even further.
A revolt within the African National Congress against South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has reached new heights. He has survived, but the repercussions will be felt for some time to come.
Credit ratings have an impact on government, as well as ordinary people. This article was first published last year as South Africa faced a possible downgrade.
South Africa has made some progress in fixing problems identified by ratings agencies. But there are a number of outstanding issues that might mean the country is given ‘junk’ status.