Gavin's take on Zuma painting
Regarding your editorial on the Spear Saga. You let Zuma himself off the hook too easily. Brett Murray , the artist, is easily condemned for a “bad” painting and for " white" insensitivity, but no such insights grace the analysis of Zuma’s role in this whole debacle. Is not our President complicit in the heavily patriarchal view of society his personal behaviour projects ? And if male “power” over women, real or perceived, is about anything, is it not about the penis ? And does Mangaung really not have any connection with the President’s usage of power to reinforce his “traditional”( whatever that means) cultural values, and thus his electoral appeal ? And is it really no coincidence that this happens at the same time as the antediluvian Traditional Courts Bill, which seeks to push black rural women into a new servitude, while Zuma himself gathers so much approval as a traditional leader in rural KwaZulu /Natal ? No Sir, there are no virgins in this sorry tale.
Letter in Business Day
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Special Economic Zones
Letter published in Financial Mail
Of all the analyses of the fate of Industrial Development Zones (IDZs) in SA, Claire Bisseker’s in FM 3 Feb 2012 contains the most common sense. Let’s apply that same common sense to the state of IDZs in South Africa. While our government remains enamoured of the Chinese State Capitalism model, for reasons of self interest as much as any economic development rationale, it ignores the uncomfortable bits of the Chinese model. This includes how China’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs), established under the leadership of the pro growth Deng Xiao Ping, really work. A peasant by origin, Deng had a clear mind that preferred common sense to ideology. Even Mao’s genocidal regime would not keep a lid on the basic economic needs of one billion impoverished Chinese forever, so the rapid and single minded pursuit of economic growth was, and remains, the core purpose of Chinese economic policy. This is a tiger the ruling class can never get off, because if they do it will devour them immediately. That focuses the mind.
The SEZs are sometimes named after Shenzen, the first SEZ, that produced growth rates averaging 25% a year for twenty five consecutive years. It did so through encouraging foreign investors to come to China and live in an incentivised bubble that had only one clear objective: export led economic growth. To attract people to invest where they would not normally invest requires incentives. Chief amongst those as far as SEZs are concerned are tax incentives, labour regulation relaxation , law and order, policy predictability, and quick decisions and assistance from trained –professional bureaucrats- not deployed cadres accountable to nobody. The first two options are ruled out by many observers in SA, and by key elements in government, because they seem “unfair” to existing businesses and may not attract proper new investors ( whatever those are). The second is out of the question given the ANC Alliance’s reliance on the narrow interests of COSATU, at the expense of the less mobilised, but much needier, unemployed majority. The last three , although relatively easily and cheap to do, require a competent state with strong leadership and a clear , single minded focus on what you want to achieve. A rugby or soccer coach wants to win. What does the ANC want?
The answer is that nobody knows for certain. When it comes to IDZs, our litany of failure has apparently taught us nothing. Coega shows that, unlike sports fields, building it is not sufficient. Because what’s on offer at Coega to a in investor bent on profit is little more than a nice sea view. Until we get serious about economic growth, we are wasting our time on discussing the intricacies and the ideological shibboleths of IDZs. Get real, or go home. It’s as simple (or apparently as difficult) as that.
Of all the analyses of the fate of Industrial Development Zones (IDZs) in SA, Claire Bisseker’s in FM 3 Feb 2012 contains the most common sense. Let’s apply that same common sense to the state of IDZs in South Africa. While our government remains enamoured of the Chinese State Capitalism model, for reasons of self interest as much as any economic development rationale, it ignores the uncomfortable bits of the Chinese model. This includes how China’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs), established under the leadership of the pro growth Deng Xiao Ping, really work. A peasant by origin, Deng had a clear mind that preferred common sense to ideology. Even Mao’s genocidal regime would not keep a lid on the basic economic needs of one billion impoverished Chinese forever, so the rapid and single minded pursuit of economic growth was, and remains, the core purpose of Chinese economic policy. This is a tiger the ruling class can never get off, because if they do it will devour them immediately. That focuses the mind.
The SEZs are sometimes named after Shenzen, the first SEZ, that produced growth rates averaging 25% a year for twenty five consecutive years. It did so through encouraging foreign investors to come to China and live in an incentivised bubble that had only one clear objective: export led economic growth. To attract people to invest where they would not normally invest requires incentives. Chief amongst those as far as SEZs are concerned are tax incentives, labour regulation relaxation , law and order, policy predictability, and quick decisions and assistance from trained –professional bureaucrats- not deployed cadres accountable to nobody. The first two options are ruled out by many observers in SA, and by key elements in government, because they seem “unfair” to existing businesses and may not attract proper new investors ( whatever those are). The second is out of the question given the ANC Alliance’s reliance on the narrow interests of COSATU, at the expense of the less mobilised, but much needier, unemployed majority. The last three , although relatively easily and cheap to do, require a competent state with strong leadership and a clear , single minded focus on what you want to achieve. A rugby or soccer coach wants to win. What does the ANC want?
The answer is that nobody knows for certain. When it comes to IDZs, our litany of failure has apparently taught us nothing. Coega shows that, unlike sports fields, building it is not sufficient. Because what’s on offer at Coega to a in investor bent on profit is little more than a nice sea view. Until we get serious about economic growth, we are wasting our time on discussing the intricacies and the ideological shibboleths of IDZs. Get real, or go home. It’s as simple (or apparently as difficult) as that.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Letter published in Sunday Times : Cronin's excuses
Why is it when Jeremy Cronin talks about high port fee charges blocking our manufacturing exports ( How History Haunts US “, Sunday Times,29 April 2012) he make himself sound like a member of the Opposition ? Why has his party not been able to fix this problem until a start was made this year ? Who was in charge of South Africa from 1994 until now – Martians ? Why did government not act on this matter despite appeals for it to do so for many years prior to this ? Those are the questions Mr Cronin should reflect upon, not some one eyed version of “history” as it suits him . And a little bit of humility for the mistakes of seventeen years in power would not go amiss either.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
LETTER PUBLISHED IN SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
In his thoughtful article," China must sweat for African money” ( Sunday Independent,6/5/12),William Gumede rightly argues for a hardnosed approach to trade with China. But along the way, he falls into the trap of putting too much faith in beneficiation as a panacea for what ails South African manufacturing. In fact, across government and particularly within the DTI’s Industrial Policy Action Plan, there is a current infatuation with beneficiation of our raw materials. At some levels it does make sense.
But if the market is not already signalling an interest in specific types of beneficiation, caution is advised. Not only are there long term infrastructural constraints , such a electricity costs and shortages in supply ( beneficiation is after all nothing but the application of heat to ore), but South Africa cannot always compete with the international markets for some beneficiated products. There are successful examples of beneficiation, such as the production of catalytic converters from platinum, but these are private sector led and limited in scope. When government takes it upon itself to select beneficiation products, it is as likely to fail as it is to succeed.
As South Africa faces stubbornly high unemployment, the temptation once government is involved in a beneficiated product independent of market competitiveness, it becomes politically impossible to withdraw. This means more subsidised state industries open to crony capitalism and freed from the profit incentive. And South Africa simply does not have enough revenue available to sustain this. So, yes, support SA manufacturing to beneficiate where it makes economic sense, but be careful of choosing sectors where we will never be competitive. Let the market be your guide.
Dr Gavin Lewis
DA MPL Gauteng Legislature
Spokesman: Economic Development
Deputy Spokesman: Finance
3 May 2012
Release immediate:
DA SUPPORTS INFORMAL TRADERS AGAINST JMPD PLUNDERING
The Democratic Alliance in Gauteng supports efforts coordinated by the South African National Traders' Retail Alliance (SANTRA), against widespread plundering of "confiscated" goods from hawkers by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police (JMPD).
During several public hearings with informal traders in the last few months the Gauteng DA , together with the Economic Development Portfolio Committee of the Gauteng Legislature, has heard widespread testimony that the JMPD deliberately targets informal traders and confiscates their goods, including items such as refrigerators, which are never seen again.
The DA in Gauteng condemns these illegal actions of ill-disciplined JMPD personnel. These actions are a breach of fundamental human and property rights and they destroy individual job creators and emerging SMEs.
We will support SANTRA's stand on this issue at their upcoming meeting with the Johannesburg City authorities and call on the MECs for Economic Development and for Community Safety in the Gauteng Provincial Government to urgently investigate allegations of "criminal syndicates" that prey on the poor. Jobs are scarce enough without penalising the job creators.
Gavin Lewis, DA MPL
DA Gauteng Economic Development spokesman
Release immediate:
DA SUPPORTS INFORMAL TRADERS AGAINST JMPD PLUNDERING
The Democratic Alliance in Gauteng supports efforts coordinated by the South African National Traders' Retail Alliance (SANTRA), against widespread plundering of "confiscated" goods from hawkers by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police (JMPD).
During several public hearings with informal traders in the last few months the Gauteng DA , together with the Economic Development Portfolio Committee of the Gauteng Legislature, has heard widespread testimony that the JMPD deliberately targets informal traders and confiscates their goods, including items such as refrigerators, which are never seen again.
The DA in Gauteng condemns these illegal actions of ill-disciplined JMPD personnel. These actions are a breach of fundamental human and property rights and they destroy individual job creators and emerging SMEs.
We will support SANTRA's stand on this issue at their upcoming meeting with the Johannesburg City authorities and call on the MECs for Economic Development and for Community Safety in the Gauteng Provincial Government to urgently investigate allegations of "criminal syndicates" that prey on the poor. Jobs are scarce enough without penalising the job creators.
Gavin Lewis, DA MPL
DA Gauteng Economic Development spokesman
LETTER PUBLISHED IN FINWEEK
Your article , “A New Money World Order” ( Finweek 3/5/12), based on an interview with Mr John Oliphant, Head of Investments and Actuarial at the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF), made my hair stand on end.
This gentleman’s proposals to invest our pension funds into “social investments” and “non traditional asset classes” is a recipe for disaster for the 1.2 million pension find members affected, and raises the question as to how Mr Oliphant got his job in the first place. To argue that because Yale and Harvard received above average returns on some of their more unusual investments has got no logical link with the GEPF at all. The GEPF is headed by people such as Mr Oliphant, not by the Yale or Harvard Endowment Funds, who invest in things people can understand, such as real estate and oil and gas – not in "assets” such as Gauteng’s disastrously conceived SANRAL toll road boondoggle, where in its infinite wisdom the GEPF already has sunk R16 billion . The Boards of Harvard and Yale have as their prime goal to protect the interests of their pension fund holders, not to invest in politically inspired white elephants which the private sector will not touch with a bargepole. The stupidity of the analogy is what worries me even more than the analogy itself.
Besides, to manage such portfolios requires high levels of skills the possession of which the SA government itself freely admits it does not have. As for Africa, yes there are good investments to be made, but not if their aim is some kind of pan African pipedream where politics, and not business has priority. You can lose at lot of money in Africa very fast- just ask the SA private sector. Mr Oliphant’s vision, such as it is, conjures up for me a generation of impoverished pensioners eking out a living in their most vulnerable years in a rerun of the Zimbabwe state pension scheme, which was pillaged for political ends and is now not worth the paper it is printed upon.
Dr Gavin Lewis
DA MPL Gauteng Legislature
Your article , “A New Money World Order” ( Finweek 3/5/12), based on an interview with Mr John Oliphant, Head of Investments and Actuarial at the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF), made my hair stand on end.
This gentleman’s proposals to invest our pension funds into “social investments” and “non traditional asset classes” is a recipe for disaster for the 1.2 million pension find members affected, and raises the question as to how Mr Oliphant got his job in the first place. To argue that because Yale and Harvard received above average returns on some of their more unusual investments has got no logical link with the GEPF at all. The GEPF is headed by people such as Mr Oliphant, not by the Yale or Harvard Endowment Funds, who invest in things people can understand, such as real estate and oil and gas – not in "assets” such as Gauteng’s disastrously conceived SANRAL toll road boondoggle, where in its infinite wisdom the GEPF already has sunk R16 billion . The Boards of Harvard and Yale have as their prime goal to protect the interests of their pension fund holders, not to invest in politically inspired white elephants which the private sector will not touch with a bargepole. The stupidity of the analogy is what worries me even more than the analogy itself.
Besides, to manage such portfolios requires high levels of skills the possession of which the SA government itself freely admits it does not have. As for Africa, yes there are good investments to be made, but not if their aim is some kind of pan African pipedream where politics, and not business has priority. You can lose at lot of money in Africa very fast- just ask the SA private sector. Mr Oliphant’s vision, such as it is, conjures up for me a generation of impoverished pensioners eking out a living in their most vulnerable years in a rerun of the Zimbabwe state pension scheme, which was pillaged for political ends and is now not worth the paper it is printed upon.
Dr Gavin Lewis
DA MPL Gauteng Legislature
9 May 2012
Release immediate:
GAUTENG'S ANTI BUSINESS LIQUOR BILL
Gauteng's black-owned liquor industry is under grave threat from the provincial government's pending Liquor Bill, potentially affecting over 1900 small enterprises and the jobs they support. This is why the Gauteng Liquor Forum, representing shebeens and taverns in the province, has submitted a petition against the draft Gauteng Liquor Bill.
Addressed to Economic Development MEC Qedani Mahlangu, the petition warns that the bill will destroy many small scale liquor operators in Gauteng. Cleaning up the shebeen sector is one thing, the petitioners argue, but requiring shebeen owners to register within a month (by the end of June 2012), despite lengthy rezoning and other legal requirements which, thanks to local government inefficiencies, take many months to come through, is simply not realistic, the tavern owners argue. And zoning brings with it heavy financial penalties for shebeens in that, for instance, they need to find up to R80 000 upfront for advance payments on electricity and water.
The outcome will be the closure of many shebeens. Whatever their problems, the shebeen sector is an especially sensitive one in townships because historically it has been one of the few ways for entrepreneurs to start their own small businesses. They have no alternative occupations to go to.
But the shebeen owners' difficulties are just the tip of the iceberg. The whole Bill reflects an anti –business bias that pervades it. This includes the requirement that "every license must be renewed annually". This presupposes that there will be no prolonged backlogs and that the Liquor Board's new computer system works without any of the glitches that accompany, for instance, the City of Johannesburg's billing system. It also means that no holder of a liquor license may be sure of retaining that license for more than a year.
The implications of this are that the liquor industry will think twice about making any substantial investments in their businesses. And few restaurants are financially viable without a liquor license – in turn impacting on Gauteng's tourism and leisure sectors.
And yet MEC Qedani is in charge of the province's economic development, at the centre of whose programmes are the creation of job creating SMEs. Go figure, as the Americans say.
Gavin Lewis, DA MPL
DA Gauteng Economic Development spokesman
Release immediate:
GAUTENG'S ANTI BUSINESS LIQUOR BILL
Gauteng's black-owned liquor industry is under grave threat from the provincial government's pending Liquor Bill, potentially affecting over 1900 small enterprises and the jobs they support. This is why the Gauteng Liquor Forum, representing shebeens and taverns in the province, has submitted a petition against the draft Gauteng Liquor Bill.
Addressed to Economic Development MEC Qedani Mahlangu, the petition warns that the bill will destroy many small scale liquor operators in Gauteng. Cleaning up the shebeen sector is one thing, the petitioners argue, but requiring shebeen owners to register within a month (by the end of June 2012), despite lengthy rezoning and other legal requirements which, thanks to local government inefficiencies, take many months to come through, is simply not realistic, the tavern owners argue. And zoning brings with it heavy financial penalties for shebeens in that, for instance, they need to find up to R80 000 upfront for advance payments on electricity and water.
The outcome will be the closure of many shebeens. Whatever their problems, the shebeen sector is an especially sensitive one in townships because historically it has been one of the few ways for entrepreneurs to start their own small businesses. They have no alternative occupations to go to.
But the shebeen owners' difficulties are just the tip of the iceberg. The whole Bill reflects an anti –business bias that pervades it. This includes the requirement that "every license must be renewed annually". This presupposes that there will be no prolonged backlogs and that the Liquor Board's new computer system works without any of the glitches that accompany, for instance, the City of Johannesburg's billing system. It also means that no holder of a liquor license may be sure of retaining that license for more than a year.
The implications of this are that the liquor industry will think twice about making any substantial investments in their businesses. And few restaurants are financially viable without a liquor license – in turn impacting on Gauteng's tourism and leisure sectors.
And yet MEC Qedani is in charge of the province's economic development, at the centre of whose programmes are the creation of job creating SMEs. Go figure, as the Americans say.
Gavin Lewis, DA MPL
DA Gauteng Economic Development spokesman
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