By Alec Hogg
During our discussion in BizNews’s Cape Town studio at the Latitude last week, DA leader John Steenhuisen went into some detail about how challenging it would be for a post 2024-government to break the cadre-filled public service stranglehold on SA society.
The conversation provided visions of Maggie Thatcher’s showdown with UK trade unions in the 1980s. And got me wondering whether something of this nature would even be possible in country where because of our history, taking to the streets en masse in protest is embedded into the popular culture.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___On reflection, something more powerful and less disrutive is already underway. SA is being privatised by stealth. State services have been so mucked up by the ANC that Pretoria has been forced to terminate its own monopolies. It now accepts the Developmental State ideology is unaffordable – and unenforcable – in this country.
Consider the forced termination of the State’s electricity supply monopoly and, coming soon, a similar freeing of Transnet being sole supplier of rail and port services. Before that, it was SAA. Previously Telkom, and way back, Sasol and Iscor. What replaced them delivered massive improvements for SA society. Hope springs.
More for you to read today:
- Berkshire Hathaway Sheds Most of Its Stake in Taiwanese Chip Maker TSMC. The sale represents an unusually abrupt change for Warren Buffett’s firm. Click here
- Rob Hersov: South African corporates – cowards or colluders. Click here.
- Manchester City Created Its Own Biggest Problem—a Former Coach Who Is Challenging Its Supremacy. As the club prepares to face Arsenal in a season-defining clash, manager Pep Guardiola is trying to hold off a challenge from his former assistant coach Mikel Arteta. Click here.
