Category: SOUTH AFRICAN PROVINCES

Central planning, Culture and development, Eastern Cape, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Job creation and unemployment, Lockdown, Township enterprises

The waves societies choose to ignore at their own peril: face masks are the new ‘Heil Hitler!’

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

In the last months of the Year of Covid-19, the world experienced a massive resurgent wave. It wasn’t a wave of deaths by coronavirus, but a lockdown tsunami engulfing individual and civil liberties. The excess deaths caused by governments’ decisions to relegate non-Covid health issues to the realm of non-essential treatments, also became more visible for those who had eyes to see…

Another heaving wave – poverty due to the swelling unemployment and enterprise demise that the lockdown measures and the autocratic disruption of economic life brought about – also gained momentum. The impact thereof is certain to dwarf that of the virus itself.

If the worldwide death toll of 1.359 million attributed to Covid-19 is divided by the daily average global death toll of 158 085 (for 2019) and one fills the annual calendar according to deaths by cause, the feared pandemic with its vicious waves is closer to a ripple than a tsunami. EOSA developed a Cause of Death Calendar that shows:

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Buying local, Central planning, Developmental state, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, ECONOMIC POLICY AND STRATEGY, Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, Export-led growth, Job creation and unemployment, Large enterprises, Market economy, Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, Northern Cape, Tourism & hospitality services

Ramaphosa’s bold plan (2): weak on detail, strong on flights of fancy

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

Two recent key government speeches gave rise to two important questions:

  • Is the inability of the government to effectively implement its policies & plans (?) worse than its inability to table concrete action plans, underpinned by clear strategies, designs, milestones, budgets and target dates?
  • Why can even Thabo Mbeki see the president is naked whilst organised big business still praises the beauty of his imaginary clothes?

The president’s tabling of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan (ERRP) was lame and lacked detail, whilst the Minister of Finance’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) left one with a feeling there is not much grasp within the collective government on how to prevent SA from slipping rapidly, if not tumbling, down the slope.

Instead of rekindling confidence and inspiration, vague and mixed messages fuelled doubt and a disbelief that the government can prevent SA from boarding the proverbial bus to Argentina (debt default). I put the following three arguments to illustrate this assessment:

  • Will the government stand solidly behind Mboweni’s strategy of freezing public sector wages for three years when they cannot deal with the much easier route to stop financing the effectively bankrupt SAA? Recall also how Pravin Gordhan in 2018 (knowing well that Eskom was not only overstaffed, but the personnel besides overpaid) overruled the Eskom Board and management when they had decided on a zero salary increase as part of addressing the Eskom viability issue.
  • Can one rely (trust would be too much to ask) on the government’s undertaking to reign in public expenditure? This, when they had failed multiple times to table a comprehensive plan on how to deal with Eskom’s debt and the growing debt burdens of other State-owned Enterprises (SOEs).
  • How is the “growth through infrastructure roll-out” approach different from numerous previous attempts – since the days of Thabo Mbeki – to strengthen the country’s economic fibre by infrastructure investments announcements, with the emphasis on announcements?

Flipchart notes or a detailed plan?

The Enterprise Observatory of SA reckons four fundamental problems underpin the ERRP and the MTBPS:

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Corruption, Eastern Cape, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Health services, Lockdown

Lock-down is international “worst practice” but Ramaphosa (and key business leaders) maintain it’s the solution

Day 132 after registering the first 100 Covid infections in SA made it clear how unsuccessful the lock-down has been: South Africa’s number of Covid infections/ 10 000 of the population despite the world’s harshest lock-down with a curfew, mandatory face masks and an alcohol ban passed that of a country that has never implemented lock-down, never made face masks mandatory and would have continued to buy South African wines were it not for the SA government that had banned the transport (and therefore export) of wine. (Figure 1)

Like that legendary village in Gaul ( home of Asterix and Obelix) held out against the might of Caesar’s Rome to maintain local culture, Sweden kept the constitutionally protected rights of its citizens intact (freedom to move, associate and work) whilst most of the world capitulated with lock-down measures before the might of fear brought about by flawed modelling of the Covid threat.

South Africa’s government early on sacrificed these rights, transforming its citizens to subjects, all “to ensure that the infection curve would be flattened to get ready for the Covid storm”. Figure 1 clearly shows how the curve was flattened, but today we know that it was not utilised to ensure Covid-ready hospitals with well-motivated staff serving sufficient beds in ICUs and care centres equipped with ventilators and required equipment.

The BBC had shown the world that the “flattening of the curve” was not used for that, at least not in the Eastern Cape.  The Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, however disputed the BBC findings, stating that, apart from the fact that the EC hospitals:

  • should follow medical waste protocols;
  • require more beds;
  • needed more nursing staff;
  • had to procure more ventilators, and
  • should get rid of blood on the floor and the rats,

the province was ready for the Covid crisis.

Easier to exterminate hospital rats than tender rats?

Mkhize made no mention that these problems were probably linked to the government’s continued feeding of the tender rats.

Quicker than what a minibus taxi can skip a traffic light, Andile Ramaphosa of Bosasa fame had convinced FNB to sponsor a R6 million contract to install Perspex shields and sanitise equipment in Gauteng taxis. He claims he is not personally benefiting from the contract awarded to SDI Force (an NGO).

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Anti-business, Black economic empowerment (BEE), Central planning, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Enterprise friendly environment, Free State, Job creation and unemployment, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Public service delivery, Small towns, Small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs), SME, Sole proprietors, Spending power (wealth/poverty), State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), Western Cape

GDP shrinkage of 12%: It’s not the virus, but the lock-down, stupid!

Johannes Wessels (@johannesEOSA1) & Mike Schüssler (@mikeschussler)

At the end of the initial 3 weeks lock-down a GDP decline of about 5% was considered as quite a catastrophic outcome. Even at that level, it was considered worth the price since delaying the spread of the Covid 19 virus would give a window of opportunity for the health sector to get beds, ventilators and care protocols in place for the spike that would inevitably come.

The minister of trade and industry (dti), Ebrahim Patel, however dismissed the negative projections of economic shrinkage as mere “thumb-sucking”.

After prolonging the hard lock-down with just a gradual easing to level 4 to end May, the growing queues of the hungry waiting for food parcels, the increase in the claims from the unemployment insurance fund and the drastic shrinking of the state’s purse, would make a 5% decline in GDP a dream outcome.

The GDP figures for Q1 2020 will only be known end June. Data from other countries indicate that those whose governments had opted for a hard lock-down are in for excessive economic damage.

Change in GDP trend is the difference between growth in 2019 and 2020 1st quarters, implying that the Philippines that experienced a change of -6% went from 5.9% GDP growth in Q1 2019 to -0.1% in Q1 2020. This chart reveals the following:

  • Countries with a hard lock-down that kept only essential services and providers open, saw an average decline of 5,2% in GDP trend.
Continue reading “GDP shrinkage of 12%: It’s not the virus, but the lock-down, stupid!” →
Anti-business, Central planning, Cities, Developmental state, Differentiated products, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Emigration/Immigration, Enterprise density, Enterprise friendly environment, Enterprise regularities, Enterprise richness, Entrepreneurial space, Export-led growth, Free State, Immigration/Emigration, KwaZulu-Natal, Large towns, Municipal efficiency, Population size, Predictive capabilities, Spontaneous order, State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), Trading services, Urban economy and growth

The City of Surreal Ramaphosa on the banks of the Rubicon

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

Cyril Ramaphosa’s vision of “a first post-apartheid city with skyscrapers, schools, universities and factories” (if implemented) has all the potential of becoming a disastrous social engineering experiment wasting resources on a massive scale. Not because the idea of a new city is wrong per se, but simply because the president is ideologically wedded to state-led development, holding a very negative view of the role of the private sector.

Ramaphosa doesn’t consider the private sector as efficient or more effective than the public sector, despite the fact that State-owned enterprises are mismanaged, bankrupt and a drag on economic development with Denel and the SABC even struggling to meet salary commitments.

Peas of the same pod

The creation of such a city is, in the Ramaphosa framework, not a vision of dynamic economic growth, but an ideological blinkered perspective of how government can improve society. Ramaphosa and all the social engineers within the ANC are, in that sense, not far from the approach of Hendrik Verwoerd. The National Party was, just like the ANC, a force pursuing transformation through prescription and limitation of choices.

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Anti-business, Construction services, Corruption, Crime against business, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Enterprise friendly environment, Western Cape

Proletarian shopping at the Soweto Maul: Cele’s whistling in the graveyard doesn’t scare off the criminals

SA’s 2018 Crime statistics & the economy (1)

SA is increasingly deteriorating into a combination of the Wild West and a Mafia state with Government incapable of keeping crime in check. Minister Beki Cele admits “the ball was dropped” but remains adamant that “(w)e haven’t reached a state of lawlessness in South Africa and we won’t”.

The South African population begs to differ:  Crime pays… and quite handsomely as well.

Fred Mouton on crime stats

The returns on crime far exceeds returns on long-term investment in blue chip stocks.  South Africans’ trust in and reliance on the police is scarcer than icebergs in tropical oceans.  And inefficient policing doesn’t only kill the economy:  it kills justice as well.

Continue reading “Proletarian shopping at the Soweto Maul: Cele’s whistling in the graveyard doesn’t scare off the criminals” →