As international investor confidence in emerging market economies such as our own declines sharply in the face of serious financial difficulties in Argentina and Brazil, we might expect prudence to be the watchword among South Africans.
Clearly, however, it is not. The motor industry strike was continuing as we went to press, endangering significant export contracts. Negotiations over pay for civil servants were at breaking point, suggesting yet more serious strike action. The Congress of South African Trade Unions was organising hundreds of thousands to march against privatisation of state-owned concerns. Thami ka Plaatjie, secretary general of the Pan Africanist Congress, displayed a talent for idiocy we hoped had passed him by when he suggested on a visit to Zimbabwe that land invasions in South Africa would take on dimensions “too ghastly to contemplate”. And the madness in Zimbabwe itself cast a shadow over perceptions of our region and its ability to sustain property rights and economic rationality.
This is a rash state of affairs. Clearly, a fault line runs down the middle of South African society over the direction we should take on economic policy. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The right to disagreement, after all, defines our own and any democracy.
But a situation has developed where the two sides on one side, the labour movement and factions of the left and, on the other, the government and business are talking past each other. As we have pointed out before, the government must accept a large part of the responsibility for this dialogue of the deaf. When it first formulated its fiscal and monetary conservatism in 1996, the government lacked the courage to engage on it frankly with the labour movement and significant others. We are still grappling with the consequences of that diffidence.
The needs of shopfloor workers, the unemployed, the landless and homeless are urgent, real, here and now. By contrast government appeals for prudence sound, to the poor and excluded, increasingly like a confidence trick. Corruption and conspicuous self-enrichment by members of the ruling elite, alongside misplaced priorities such as the arms deal, have generated popular impatience. The remarkable restraint shown by people in the townships, squatter camps and countryside is giving way to something more aggressive.
It will take political courage and serious debate among leaders on both sides to bridge the fault line.
Wants a pirate …
There is something satisfying about someone like Orlando Pirates boss Irvin Khoza being taken on by the authorities. It has been an open secret that Khoza wields an unnatural amount of power for a soccer boss. He is, indeed, a man who has attracted trepidation and awe.
The raid by the South African Revenue Service (Sars) is just one aspect of a new interest on the part of the government in this intriguing man. The Khoza probe shows the state is willing to take on the rich and famous, even if they are closely aligned to the ruling party.
This is not to say that the Khoza probe is an isolated incident. Earlier this year the national prosecution authority raided Keith Kunene and Moses Moloele two powerful businessmen also aligned with the African National Congress.
There has been speculation that Khoza is being targeted for political reasons namely that he is aligned to a faction in the ANC that is not in sync with those at the top. For now, however, there is no evidence of that.
While it appears Khoza may have been “Caponed” nailed for his tax affairs because the authorities cannot pin him down on anything else the importance of the Sars offensive should not be underestimated.
Sars has developed extraordinary clout. Revenue collections are galloping ahead. Having demonstrated its ability to vastly improve tax collection, Sars is now showing that everyone must pay. The creation of a tax-paying culture is crucial for a reliable, investor-friendly country.
We hope that Orlando Pirates fans like Khoza’s friends in the ANC will not react with undue hostility. For they, too, must realise that principle is more important than personality. All South Africans in the government and outside of it, rich and poor should give Sars and allied law enforcement agencies their fullest support. And let us keep a vigilant lookout for any among us who may argue otherwise.
Hamba Kahle, Donald Woods
Few South African journalists have received as warm a send-off as Donald Woods, who died in Britain last Sunday.
He managed to offend many yes but they were, largely, the humourless, joyless racists of yesteryear. He amused, informed and inspired many, many more, some of whom today drive this nation’s hopes for justice, peace, prosperity and democracy.
Woods’s generation provided few heroes to the often young journalists who sought ways in the 1970s and 1980s to place their craft at the service of the struggle for democracy while not compromising their ethics. Woods was a rare exception. His life’s work was marked by a principled stand on behalf of a murdered friend. He could not rescue Steve Biko’s life. But Woods’s courage helped resuscitate a nation’s hope.
Hamba Kahle, Donald. Your life enriched many.