Enjoyed engaging with fellow columnists and newspaper editors on the role of press in shaping public policy challenges. The organisers made one clip available. They summarised my input as follows: SACSIS columnist, Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen, argues that progressive activists should be…
The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) occurs in a deepening economic crisis; expressed most notably by the loss of over 1 million jobs in the last year. The prognosis going forward is dire, with government estimates on reaching our…
How do we tell the story of economic policy in South Africa? As an analyst my tools are statistics and substantiation, and even sometimes a case study. Steve Mandy, a fashion artist, tells the story through art. His exhibition, which…
Imagination is absent in the conventional spaces of South Africa’s economic growth path. Conventional wisdom equates increasing economic growth to around 7%, as an important target. In political speak, the growth target is of course a “necessary” and not a…
Sixteen Rand is not much. It’s what a single shot of espresso at an upmarket hotel in Cape Town might cost. However, poverty estimates reveal that over 20% of the population attempt to meet not only their food needs, but…
We have been here before. The third major public service strike since 1994 is upon us. During the first major public service strike since democracy, in 1999, trade unions suffered a significant defeat with government’s unilateral implementation of wages. But…
A reminder to the ANC that it needed to deepen democracy in society arrived at the ANC’s Polokwane conference, where one major gripe against President Mbeki was that he had failed to create “policy coherence” amongst the ANC and its…
Dear Ministers, Patel, Davies and Gordhan Consider this letter a criticism that nevertheless appreciates the value of your recent work on creating the building blocks for a new development path in South Africa. After all, as our collective history indicates,…
Two incomplete and complicit strands of thought characterise South African responses to the publication of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the Mail & Guardian. The first strand of thought rooted in the Muslim community explains the offence…