Thomas Johnson - The Blog

I've been saying the alarmist and irresponsible exaggeration about expropriation without compensation (EWC) , mainly from IRR and right-of-centre media BizNews (BN) and Politicsweb (PW), is that South Africa as a nation, its history, constitution and expropriation legal framework are not anything like Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and, and ... I said the worst was expected, mainly by whites, of a black government and blacks after 1994 but nothing came to pass as they feared. Black people forgave if not forgot. It was a political deal that whites and especially white monopoly capital, what Sampie Terreblance called "Mineral Energy Complex", kept their often ill-gotten apartheid wealth and status upon which their present day prosperity is built. Only 1% of whites live in poverty compared to 63% blacks and 44% brown. But who is shouting the loudest about a very slim potential of Zimbabwe-type land grabs, which Ramaphosa and the bill says shall not happen? Right wing an...

The IRR is making the most noise about expropriation without compensation (EWC) and the change to section 25 of the constitution. Almost every week one of its members/writers, particularly its head of research Anthea Jeffery, writes about it, nothing new but essentially the same article. It's agreed changing the constitution, which was approved by a vote in the National Assembly led by the EFF (it was their proposal) and ANC, which meekly followed and adopted as its own policy, and the bill (public comment on the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill has been extended by a month until February 29), unwise and will damage confidence in the country and its economy. But the reaction especially from IRR has been exaggerated about the impact, namely, South Africa might turn into Zimbabwe or Venezuela where similar polices were adopted that contributed to their economic ruin. The only reasonable analysis from them was CEO Frans Cronje's, who's generally milder than his redu...

I've often said the middle class sit in their wonders of motoring engineering, sealed off from the world and don't see the poor, unemployed and homeless. But if they're observant, they don't need to walk for a change, as Institute of Race Relations' Michael Morris did, to see them. Instead, in their middle class bubbles, they choose to ignore the signs, and in Morris' case, the specific graffito that sparked his musings that "whites must face our [South Africa's] history ". The IRR-affiliated  Centre for Risk Analysis' quality of life index that whites have the highest standard of living of South Africa's population groups is already known and evident. It's in the low poverty level for that group of 1%, and less than 10% (8% in 2014) of whites are unemployed . So what are they and IRR especially complaining about? All South Africans - not only whites - are dissatisfied with the incompetent and corrupt ANC government and dismal s...

Premier Alan Winde wrote an op-ed in Daily Maverick about the auditor-general's (AG) purported "standards" that's allegedly preventing the Western Cape from meeting their service delivery objectives ( Service Delivery Must Take Precedence Over Compliance ).  His predecessor Helen Zille said much the same including in her DM column. This is either misinformation, ignorance or deliberate lies about the role and objectives of the auditor and audit respectively. Ironically, while the DA-run WC complain about the AG, they crow from the rooftops about the number of clean audits the AG gives them, showing their hypocrisy. A further irony is not even the ANC - corruption central - complains about the AG. What does that say about the DA's sour grapes. I don't understand them. It appears like his predecessor, Winde and WC staffs don't understand what an auditor does. Zille complained about staff allegedly quaking before the AG's "wrath" (sic). Wh...

There's been much commentary after the DA's recent implosion. RW Johnson , Jon Cayzer , Richard Poplak and one or two others gave good, fair assessments. DA apologists and supporters like James Myburgh acknowledge the party is in trouble but for different reasons.  However, the DA downplay concerns like DA MP Emma Powell  did last week (see here ). She attributed Zille's sudden, unexpected entrance into the race and election as FedEx chair, which caused Mashaba's departure and was the final nail for Trollip and Maimane and resulting furore, as observers not understanding its internal politics, ie it's so simple and we're overreacting. So within the party and among its supporters there's tortuous rationalisations, excuses and even blunt denials to explain away the worst crisis and crisis of confidence the party has had since 1994. The latest to offer a revisionism and apologia is James Myburgh, publisher and editor of Politicsweb (see here ). He'...

Emma Powell doesn’t get Richard Poplak’s assessment of the DA  in Daily Maverick . He did not comment on their governance in Western Province and Cape Town per se, which the IRR’s CEO Frans Cronje called a well-run bubble based on isolated examples, ironically, one was the police, a national competence. Poplak detailed, in his wordy style that’s not to everyone’s taste, how the DA gutted their hitherto liberal values, most of it under Helen Zille’s leadership, and their right-of-centre shift. Even erstwhile DA supporter RW Johnson thinks so (see here ). But Powell’s response is about the metrics, as she understands it, of good governance.   She doesn’t answer Poplak except saying he doesn’t understand internal DA politics.   It’s the card hustler’s trick of misdirection. To be clear, the DA is better, if not far better, than the ANC. But that’s only because the ANC is negligent, incompetent and corrupt and set a low bar. The fact is any political party ca...

Helen Zille lost her review application in the North Gauteng High Court for the Public Protector's finding her colonialism tweet was unethical. From her layman's and as the aggrieved, losing party's interpretation of Judge Malebo Habedi's obiter dicta ("personal observations", "irrelevant ruminations"), which he's allowed to do, one would assume it's as she says - he let his biases and conflicts of interest get in the way of his job (I'll get back to that). Last week Pierre de Vos, who's no friend of the PP, never mentioned any of Zille's issues in his analysis of the judgement . He said inter alia: the "judgement contains much of interest for people interested in the judicial review of bodies exercising public power, in general, and of the reports of the public protector'; 'the court proceeded to consider – and reject – all the arguments presented to it by Zille’s lawyers. To try and understand the reasoning...