By Alec Hogg
It’s over 30 years since I met the extraordinary intellect that is Cees Bruggemans. This peerless economist is very much in my thoughts right now after a close friend of his emailed that Cees is very ill and unlikely to recover.
Our association began in 1983 when my friend and then boss, the late David Carte, had the brainwave of introducing Cees as the economic commentator to our offering on Business Times. David called it the “Rex” column – in deference to the FT’s Lex – and by keeping the author anonymous, ensured Bruggemans’s independence.
Thus was launched what was to become the very public career of a man who had been hidden away at Shell but whose writing soon attracted the attention of FNB, where for 28 years he served as its chief economist. During that time, Cees made a massive contribution to SA’s economic debate through a rare ability to see the glass half full, but without losing his rationality.
In one of his last contributions, penned on May 3, Bruggemans wrote of South Africa: “We are not so badly holed below the waterline as to be sinking. But we remain a drifting hulk, barely getting ahead. With no apparent care shown by those responsible. But then they seem to have a different agenda.” The piece was titled The Zuma Effect Runs Deep. Once more, he nailed it.
