Thomas Johnson - The Blog

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...

South Africa's economy is in crisis. The problems are going to take more than a few empty words by the left's favourite pres, Ramaphosa. It's structural, partly a tolerated and condoned holdover from apartheid, including social aspects, and partly deliberate decisions by the ANC (ideology) and business that affect the economy.  Declining private expenditure and investment aka fixed capital formation are the end result of the underlying structure or nature of SA society that's proving impossible to change.  Crime, entrenched corruption, poor education, poverty and inequality, which indirectly impacts crime, are almost entirely the fault of the ANC government. They had a window to address the legacy of apartheid but through hubris, incompetence - often plain stupidity that defies reason - and venality they cocked it up.  ANC incompetence - I still don't understand how anyone who's doing the same job for 30 years has still not mastered it and continues to mess up -...

Opinion among media commentators is the ANC, DA with IFP have done South Africans proud with the coalition, GNU as the ANC call it. Credit where it's due but survival - SA's - if the wrong choice was made, focused minds. But rather than Ramaphosa being the architect of the coalition who suddenly shook off years of dithering and wreckage to become the ace negotiator he purportedly is, the decision was made for him/ANC when MK and EFF presented their expected tempestuous demands. Had they not, they'd be the ANC's partners and not DA. And that would be that. But even now, the future's uncertain. After all that's happened there's still this odd perception Ramaphosa is a good leader, an ethical person, a good "negotiator". Perhaps his many admirers have Stockholm Syndrome.  The negotiator bit is based on 30-year-old ancient history. The NP gave in to all(?) ANC's demands because they had no choice - the game was over and they conceded to prevent dan...

Media, political and business commentators have greeted the grand coalition, or government of national unity (GNU) as the ANC calls it, with hope. Leftwing mainstream commentators are now reverting to their default ANC and Ramaphosa-centric positions after the last few years of pessimism and abandonment. Like the previous, original Ramaphoria (v1.0), they expect a lot from him and the GNU, his purported, exaggerated qualities advertised, his failures forgotten. One typical example of Ramaphoria v2.0 is Daily Maverick 168's editor Heather Robertson last week. She fulsomely wrote of citizens' paradoxical initiatives in Johannesburg and Durban, where municipal and goverment services have collapsed due to ANC incompetence, corruption and mismanagement, to remedy government duties as optimism.  It's one thing to volunteer - back in the day I was a volunteer in my community including police forum to help rectify the near collapse of the local police station's management; we l...

Frequently Ramaphosa-centric commentators in the mainstream media, ie those who are or were once but deep down still are Ramaphorias, state as fact he's this great consensus-builder and negotiator. They state so based on three-decade-old negotiations that led to 1994's elections. But otherwise they're unable to name significant instances of consensus or negotiated outcomes that Ramaphosa as president of the country was primarily responsible for.  Not examples of internal ANC deliberations, though, because they always agree what's good for the ANC. But even then, Ramaphosa is not as influential with the party's decision-makers as made out. He had to retract the trade cabinet portfolio offered to the DA, didn't he. And kept mediocre and corrupt ministers and a bloated cabinet to satisfy ANC rent-seekers when the national consensus, even among ANC-friendly commentators, is that it's not in SA's interest. So where is his supposed skill in this? Ramaphoria st...

 A government of national unity is used in extraordinary times, not when the incumbent party loses an election. Ramaphosa presented the county in crisis because the ANC lost the majority. But then the ANC has always conflated party and state. Mainstream media analysts credit Ramaphosa personally with the GNU, describing it as a masterstroke. Shaking off recent disappointment, their Ramaphoria is reborn. Ramaphoria 2.0. The supreme "negotiator" is back, they say. That the ANC's centre went into coalition with centre-right DA is due to his genius. It's irrelevant the EFF and MK made this possible with their predictably provocative demands. Had they not, the ANC's partners would have been them. So must we thank Ramaphosa's putative genius or EFF's and MK's stupidity for us not having ruinous coalition? Doesn't matter to the Ramaphorias.  From Ramaphosa's inauguration speech, the clamour project positive things for the GNU, though based on a coalit...