Thomas Johnson - The Blog

The left's proposal for a basic income grant (BIG) has been revived in the aftermath of the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. But concerns about its affordability. President Cyril Ramaphosa, ever the weak leader riding on popular opinion, has expressed support for it and asked Treasury to see how it can be funded. It would be no surprise if this was one of the reasons why finance minister Tito Mboweni, who was against it and said the country can't afford it, resigned.  During the recent riots and looting in Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal, commentators said poverty and unemployment were among the causes. This was despite the motives been an attempted insurrection. Incidentally, attributing riots to the poor is insulting because it presumes this is the only way they voice their concerns. The fact is middle class people were among rioters too.   Commentators opined the basic income grant (BIG) must be implemented as soon as possible. Suddenly it’s been resurrected again. It ...

In part 2 of my article of the DA's road to ANC's corruption, I look at  Cape Town’s Municipal Planning Tribunal, a corrupt political tool that benefits the DA’s developer friends   The City of Cape Town’s Municipal Planning Tribunal (MPT) adjudicates urban planning applications in terms of the Municipal Planning By-law 2015. However, its pro-development decisions are consistent with the DA-run city’s development friendly “red-carpet approach to development”.   I ts decisions are based on political pro-development considerations and its members are from development disciplines and city employees acting to promote the city’s agenda.   Invariably reasons for approval are that there would be purported social benefits and allegedly no/negligible negative impacts.   MPT doesn’t examine the merits of objections and all facts equally; relies upon developer applicants’ tendentious and naturally positive assessments and doesn’t objectively consider negative impa...

The South African state, its politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt. The ANC is terminally, one hundred percent corrupt. The other governing party, DA in Western Cape and Cape Town, is on the road there. The difference between them is only in scale. The DA, supporters and media claim they’re good governors. But a cursory inspection of their record reveals it’s a lie. It’s based only on them purportedly being good financial administrators. But that’s only one aspect of good governance. The bar to obtain a financially unqualified audit is very low. Managers must be incorrigibly incompetent and corrupt for organisations to get one. South Africa, i.e. the ANC-ruled state, consistently fails in all areas of governance and DA-run Cape Town and Western Cape in all except finance. Specifically, ethics, legal compliance, accountability and resource optimisation are poor to dismal. Here are examples of corruption and criminality in the Western Cape government. The media concentrate on ANC...