Thomas Johnson - The Blog

 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...

 Political analysts know politics but they're no better than you or I telling which way an election will go. By applying what we all could see, I predicted the DA's and ANC's result within one percentage point at 2019's election.  2010 was the last time I voted DA in any election. I saw how, under Helen Zille, it became unmoored from its liberal principles. She was, and is, a key figure in its failure to keep voters and the disillusionment of former non-white supporters.  Under her the DA, always a bit shouty, became even more strident. One expects politicians to be proud and never admit they're wrong, but the DA's hubris became unpleasant to bear. They took example from Zille herself including their approach to the various scandals and problems she personally and DA experienced since.  The DA has shifted to centre-right, similar now to FF+ but without the latter's integrity about what it stands for. Wilmot James, when he was DA MP, expressed concern about t...

Ramaphosa signed NHI into law last week in a blatant election move. Immediately he and ANC said, in response to criticism and concerns, it would be incremental and could be changed. People prefer paying extortionate private healthcare fees rather than resist. But the problem is that in a supposed free market people are held to ransom by healthcare providers and don't have a choice. NHI will make things far, far worse, and the ANC will mess things up and steal as they always do (assuming they're still in power if and when it begins).  But private healthcare (PH) partly has themselves to blame for this situation. And they've brought the problem down on all of us with heavy handed state intervention.  NHI started with complaints of the costs of PH and that it was exclusionary - it absorbed a huge chunk of national health expenditure for a small percentage of the population. Statements now by NHI critics that SA's out-of-pocket health costs are among the lowest - 12th lowes...

Businessman and media owner Iqbal Surve's bank accounts were closed. He is a controversial figure and the butt of other media for his businesses practices and aggressive, narcissistic persona. He uses his media company, Independent Media, as his personal marketing department and to attack his critics and those who've crossed him. Independent Media does not have the best of reputations professionally - it pulled out of the Press Council because of its perceived unfairness but rejoined recently.  But it's Surve's ownership of investment company Sekunjalo that brought the most controversy. The Public Investment Corporation, the investment arm of the government pension fund, loaned Surve R5 billion with Sekunjalo as collateral. But the company was massively overvalued. Daily Maverick business editor Tim Cohen in reply to me yesterday about the matter: "Surve's big sin was that he convinced, how we don't know, the administrator of SA's state pensioners cash ...

Cape Town's MyCiti Cape Flats phase under construction is arguably the single most significant example of wasteful expenditure in the city right now. Costing R8.5 billion, when complete, it will put Cape Town Stadium in second place.  UCT associate professor of civil engineering and transport, Romano del Mistro said at master's degree seminars I attended (2006/7) that public transport projects' costs must not exceed their benefit to citizens. He was talking about Gautrain, a very expensive political legacy project, but said the principle applied to MyCiti and other rapid bus transit systems too.  Already certain MyCiti routes in the City Bowl and Table View (the original route) have had to close because they were unviable. But the city's politicians and planners have not learned the lesson.  They're pushing ahead with another grand project - dedicated, exclusive bus lanes, sky bridges, expropriating houses to make way for the extra wide roads - rather than the simpl...

 The DA has repeatedly claimed that through their sole efforts they're creating jobs in the Western Cape, and, therefore, unemployment is the lowest in the country. The latest is Western Cape MEC for finance and economic opportunities Mireille Wenger (March 23) and Premier Alan Winde.  Both also mention, compared to nationally, the WC has a higher quality of life (HDI) and lower inequality - a negligibly lower Gini is purportedly proof of their success (note it's their success, not the people's who make the region what it is). Several years ago various DA members including then leader Mmusi Maimane and finance spokesman Geordin Hill-Lewis claimed the DA in the WC "created" between 400,000 and 600,000 "new jobs [sic]" (the number varied depending on the person speaking) between 2009 and 2019. They used either the official or expanded (discouraged jobseeker) unemployment rates, whichever was favourable to their interpretation of unemployment numbers. Incid...

The mainstream media is alarmed by the formation of the MK Party. It's composed of disaffected supporters. The alarm is exacerbated since Jacob Zuma has thrown his support behind it. The liberal-left blames Zuma and his supporters for SA's state: corruption death spiral, failing state and social and economic decline. While Zuma and those on his coat tails bear a huge responsibility, the entire ANC was and is responsible.  Daily Maverick asks how can Zuma's supporters still back him after what he's done to the country. They've demonized Zuma, and rightly so. But corruption has worsened under Ramaphosa. As president of the country and ANC he failed to act against those in his party, cadres and others complicit in state capture and failed to implement Zondo Commission recommendations. Members of his cabinet including himself (Phala Phala) who have credible allegations implicating them in corruption are sitting pretty. He was head of the cadre deployment committee, the ...