By Alec Hogg
South Africa’s world-class legislative structure is the bright spot in an otherwise disturbing World Economic Forum 2015 ICT report. The details are on Biznews today, highlighting SA’s Top Ten ranking (of 143 countries) in just one area – our legal system’s efficiency to challenge regulations.
Good laws provide a solid structure for economic growth. But on their own are not enough to compensate when Government pulls the wrong levers. Which is the obvious conclusion when you see SA filling Bottom Ten positions in mobile tariffs; available bandwidth and overall quality of the education system. And coming stone last in the quality of its maths and science education.
The good news is SA’s overall score in the 2015 WEF report actually improved. The bad news is it rose too slowly, with the country drifting five positions lower to 75th. Seychelles has moved into second, dropping SA to just third in Africa, a distance behind Mauritius.
SA’s political leaders tend to attack the methodology of global comparative reports where the country fares poorly. That’s a mistake. They would be serving us all a lot better by focusing on the reason for the Drift. Given ICT’s critical role in a modern economy, analysing this report would be a great place to start.
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