Thomas Johnson - The Blog

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is broken, financially, organisationally and its ethos. This article explains why. When I saw the title of the op-ed "Universities under siege: UCT and the assault on its autonomy and academic freedom" by Nazeema Mohamed in Daily Maverick, I thought it was going to be about how UCT's academic freedom is being threatened from within, and threats to university freedom in general. She is a member of UCT's council. Instead, it was tirade against the Trump administration, Israel and UCT's donors who object to its resolution suspending academic ties with Israel. Although it's specifically about the US and other donors cancelling and threatening to cancel funding, Mohamed's wrath is directed against everyone who disagrees with UCT's council and executive policies and decisions.  I'd never heard of Mohamed until now. But then I don't know who most council members are. I suppose I should; I'm an alumnus who has the...

 I was shocked to read entry-level medical officers in public health earn R80-90,000 a month excluding overtime. This compared to R15-20,000 for other professionals like engineers, lawyers, accountants, etc. This reveals how unrealistically high public sector salaries are. It's well-known these workers, in all disciplines, earn more than their private sector peers - 30% is often given - for typically a lower standard of service. The unsustainable and irrational public employee costs over the past 30 years is partly to blame for SA being driven to a fiscal cliff in recent years.  According to the internet the average annual salary for an (experienced, private) general practitioner doctor is about R540,000. This excludes benefits like medical aid, pension etc that public workers take for granted. Private doctors must fund their own. The starting salary is around R222,000, similar to other junior professionals. They too, like white-collar workers in the private sector, work or ar...

 In 2000 South Africa's GDP was $152 billion. Its peers - developing and middle income countries - achieved an average 4.5% growth annually, including the bounce back after 2008 and Covid. Had SA reached that, or even a modest 3%, it would be around $1 trillion by now. The ANC has collectively made us poorer. Despite the evidence and suggestions and advice year in year out of what ought to be done, for the most part impartial experts, they refuse to change, the tax and spend policy being one of them. What's driving them is anybody's guess - communist/socialist ideology, their cornerstone NDR, fuelling their patronage and corrupt networks or just stupidity and naivete, or all of that. This week Ann Bernstein of the Centre for Democratic Enterprise wrote about her interview with Argentina's Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation Federico Sturzenegger. As she describes, Argentina had similar conditions to SA but incoming president Javier Milei told citizens ...

Recently Daily Maverick's Rebecca Davis wrote about the severe dysfunction at the Cape Town Master's Office (see Groundup's investigation 2019). Among other problems, Davis reported staff allegedly demanding payment from users to speed up paperwork and bypass queues. I'm curious why this is new news. She omitted to mention the Justice Department has known about this for a long time. In January 2022 then deputy minister John Jeffery made an "unannounced" visit and was "surprised" (sic) it was not operating effectively.  My mother died in July 2017 and the Master has still not finalised her will. The executor has had to submit the same documents numerous times (apparently they're getting lost) and make numerous visits, all in vain. In December 2021, at his suggestion, I emailed the master, Zureena Agulhas, to complain. She forwarded my email to staff directing them to attend to the matter. Only then, four years after the will was lodged, did he rec...

Australia has a housing crisis caused by decades-old bad policy. Among them was tax breaks for developers to build housing for investment purposes. Now housing, including rentals for tiny units, are unaffordable to many. Demand far exceeds supply. Cape Town has a housing problem which its developer-friendly policy exacerbates. Housing here is the most expensive in the country, pressured by foreign buyers, in-migration, Airbnb and digital nomads. A modest two-bedroom flat in a mid-tier suburb starts from R800,000, not even mentioning rents. The city's policy is to sell available land at a discount presuming developers would build "affordable housing [sic]" - monthly income under R29,000 (Groundup). This is middle income - these people can buy or rent on the open market. The first problem is the land will not be auctioned, a process where the highest bid wins. Do they accept the lowest offer? The other flaw is discounting land does not necessarily lead to genuinely affordab...

Columnist William Saunderson-Meyer writing this weekend (again) about Donald Trump's executive order suspending aid to South Africa and offering minorities refugee status. "One would have hoped that the blizzard of bad news would trigger just a modicum of introspection in the South African body politic. Alas, it seems not. There ensued a swooning media narrative depicting a plucky Ramaphosa dishing it out to that thuggish US lout kicking sand in our faces. Ramaphoria —the uncritical media-fuelled adoration of the president that characterised the early years of Ramaphosa’s first term but gradually waned in response to his inability to match inspiring speech with action — is definitely back in favour." (Note: in the early Ramaphosa presidency, Saunderson-Meyer too was a Ramaphoria, as was most of SA's elite.) "While there were bitterly few dispassionate journalistic assessments to be found, there was plenty of mockery by columnists and cartoonists of Afrikaners and...

US president Donald Trump threw the cat among the pigeons last week with his social media post South Africa was doing "bad things" to minorities and taking their land away (untrue, for now) and he was suspending aid. This was primarily about the Expropriation Act. SA's government and media, which frequently acts as a mouthpiece for the ANC, Daily Maverick's Stephen Grootes for example, wrote the Expropriation Act was fading from politics until Trump's statements. False. It's been in the public's subconscious since the ANC and Ramaphosa capitulated to the EFF's demand. If it was no longer headline news, why do the DA and others say they will test its constitutionality in court? Referring to taking a tough stand against Trump. Grootes wrote Ramaphosa can, when necessary, be forceful. I suppose given an opportunity anyone can show a different side. But political aggression is not him. There's no disputing he's a supine, weak and ineffectual leader...

 The South African establishment - ANC, DA, Parliamentarians and particularly commentators' and media's - reaction to Trump's suspension of aid to South Africa should be puzzling to anyone who is fixed in reality. Anyone who works in the NGO sector knows funding is not guaranteed and they are not entitled to it.  But to Trump, their reaction has been outrage, of "how dare he!", and as Rebecca Davis writes in Daily Maverick, "Trump se moer "!, quoting Parliamentarians' reaction. I worked for an NGO. The Western Cape Government funded us almost one sixth of the total budget. One year, out of the blue, just before our financial year end, they wrote funding would not be renewed the following year because our mission no longer met their funding requirements. It was untrue. We had reserves to cover perhaps one to two years. Fortunately, our director and fundraiser met their people (including at some time then premier Helen Zille) and the misunderstanding ...

One of Donald Trump's first decisions was suspending all foreign aid. This has thrown programmes around the world into chaos. South Africa receives funding for its HIV/AIDS programme via PEPFAR, which for now will continue. However, when the suspension was announced, there was panic, disbelief and outrage. Some media commentators incorrectly linked it to AfriForum lobbying Trump about the ANC's policies against minorities. But what is apparent is the South African government, politicians, including far-left like EFF who're enemies of "imperialist" United States, media and commentators came to be entitled to the funding.  Anyone who has worked for an NGO, as I have, knows funding is never guaranteed and could be cut at any time, for any reason. Often notice is very short although seldom as sudden as the case with USAID's. Speaking from the economics of it, I believe many foreign-funded health and education programmes in SA, if not the majority, should for the m...

Two matters related to manufacturing, subsidies and tariffs caught my eye this week. One was the South African government signing a bill that gives 150% import subsidies for electric (EV) and hydrogen powered vehicles if they're manufactured in the country. The other story, which is receiving a lot of attention in the mainstream media, is ArcelorMittal closing its Newcastle plant, bringing to an end steel long-steel production in the country because, AM complained, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition had not imposed tariffs on imported steel, Chinese in particular. First car manufacturing. Australia no longer has a car manufacturing industry because it cost too much. Their economy is over four times SA's and they found it unsustainable.  South Africa's R34 billion a year in subsidies to manufacturers is ridiculous given the size of the industry and its contribution to economy. And we don't benefit from cheaper vehicles - we pay import parity prices. Conseq...