FIRST, let me state the following upfront: poverty, low levels of education, lack of information, inability or laziness to analyse data and to connect the dots are all enemies of democracy. In countries that enjoy a combination of high education levels and literacy on the one hand, and low poverty levels and smaller gaps between [...]
IT IS hard, when one looks at what is going on in the country, not to be tempted to suspect a sinister drive to empty our country’s coffers ahead of a feared political Armageddon in 2019. How else does one explain the sudden proliferation of media reports of several multi-million rand deals and other arrangements [...]
JUST over a year ago, we welcomed with a combination of trepidation and relief the appointment of the SABC’s 9th CEO since 2009. I count acting CEOs in this number because they have become quite ubiquitous in our public service, both at the SABC and at a few other state-owned entities. In fact, the [...]
I FIND myself wondering increasingly often, probably like many other South Africans, how the late president Nelson Mandela would have responded to a number of issues we’re faced with in contemporary South Africa. I try to hold on with dear life to the memory of a time - a very brief time - when South [...]
I WAS going to start this column by asking the same question The Sunday Times’ Hogarth used to ask of Zimbabweans in the early years of Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF’s destruction of the Zimbabwean economy, some ten years or so ago. Hogarth's question at the time began along these lines: “... but what will [...]