Thomas Johnson - The Blog

There was general muted encouragement for the Budget, with most economists being cautiously optimistic . However, the ANC and the Left were enthusiastic .   The Cape Times' fawning praise of the Budget that it drew "wide praise from corporates, economists and politicians alike" is an exaggeration of what economists said.  The superlatives and kudos their editorial ("A budget of hope", February 25) heaped on finance minister Pravin Gordhan - "brave and innovative; thinking out of the box" - made me think for a moment they had morphed into Gordhan's PR company.  But then the Cape Times is unashamedly an ANC-leaning newspaper, always telling the "good story". Ultimately, it's misleading to think this budget, this year, on its own will change South Africa's fortunes without continual and concerted efforts to revive a moribund economy , drastically reduce government spending, especially the bloated and inefficient public...

In his column in Business Day, SA excels at circling overhead dropping money , author and academic Jonny Steinberg says no one has suggested cutting cash transfers to the poor.    The ANC would not agree because its voting support among the lower income group and poor is based on being a munificent patriarch at taxpayer expense: the "ANC cares and provides a better life for all".  Refer to allegations by the opposition the ANC handed out food parcels during election rallies .   We know a cleaner who for years after the 1994 elections complained Mandela (not sure if himself or ANC) promised her a house and a fridge - yes, a fridge - if she voted for the ANC.  According to her, he promised this during election campaigning in Mitchell's Plain. This single mother of two lived in someone's backyard in a Wendy house, paying exorbitant rent, not including electricity, which was a substantial portion of her landlord's own bill when the latter was u...

Last year during the Rhodes Must Fall protest over the Rhodes statu e on UCT campus, I wrote a long letter to UCT's council and vice-chancellor Max Price.  I said that as a citizen of Cape Town and alumnus I was appalled and ashamed of the university for grovelling and appeasing and capitulating to the Rhodes Must Fall mob's intransigent demands for instant gratification.  I was particularly disappointed with Price's flip-flopping and thought he displayed poor leadership under pressure. In separate correspondence, I criticised Western Cape's heritage agency for hastily and secretly approving the removal of the statue without due process . I compared the mob's modus operandi of threatening staff and council, defacing artwork and monuments and attempting to rewrite history to suit their own version to fascists and fundamentalists everywhere. What I wrote is prophetic. UCT is literally burning - artworks burnt in a bonfire, Price's office p...

The DA says the NPA's decision to prosecute DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach on the same charges that her disciplinary hearing founded her not guilt of is a witch hunt and the ANC playing politics. I wonder what they would say to the DA-run Western Cape education department finding South Peninsula High School principal Brian Isaacs guilty of the same criminal charges the State (the NPA) withdrew on the merits , that is, it was unsubstantiated, last year - a witch hunt and politics? It has happened before. Probably originating from the premier's office but handled by the HR department, they pursued a senior employee for three years with spurious disciplinary charges because this whistle-blower, in his personal capacity on a matter unrelated to his job, brought to the public's attention political influence that had been brought to bear on a so-called independent WC agency, Cape Nature, and the damaging consequences to our biodiversity thereof.   Concer ned ab...

President Zuma’s proposal at the State of the Nation to move Parliament to Pretoria was a red herring and misdirection. Not one economist and ratings agency mentioned the cost of two capitals as the reason constraining South Africa’s economic growth and contributing to possible downgrades. They repeatedly referred to high government debt, spiralling public wage bill, electricity shortages, policy uncertainty and an unfavourable investment climate .   Let’s put the alleged benefits of moving Parliament in a financial context.  The money for the multi-billion cost (I don’t believe it has been quantified) will be borrowed; the national savings fund has been raided to pay for last year’s above-inflation public sector wage hike and the hard-pressed taxpayer can’t pay more. The interest on the capital will be hundreds of millions of rand a year.  The financial benefit, estimated at R750 million a year, will only be realised after 10 years, long after South Africa has ...