Dear Editor
- Reports of the ANC interfering with the mandate of the SARB are a cause for concern.
- The party has apparently instructed the Finance minister to manage inflation without raising interest rates.
- The SARB’s independence is crucial to ensure that monetary policy serves all of South Africa’s holistic interests, not merely the narrow interests of the ANC.
South Africa faces an escalating cost-of-living crisis as inflation rises and our Rand weakens. This crisis indiscriminately afflicts every South African and the economically vulnerable bear the brunt.
This week, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is expected to strategize on monetary policy interventions to mitigate the ANC-inflicted economic crisis.
It is reported that the ANC has directed Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to ‘instruct’ the SARB to manage inflation without raising interest rates. This unsolicited intervention is a gross breach of the independence that underpins the SARB’s decision-making mandate. The SARB must exercise this constitutional mandate based on independent economic assessments alone and not on the politically expedient whims of the government.
The ANC’s brazen attempt to blame the SARB for its self-induced cost-of-living crisis is transparently disingenuous. It’s not the SARB’s duty to redress the ANC’s fiscal policy failings. The core problem lies in the fact that our economy is not growing. A direct result of the ANC’s failed economic policy.
The governing party’s disgraceful defence of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine alongside its inability to attract foreign capital, promote saving in a high-inflation environment, move beyond race-based policy frameworks, resolve the energy crisis, and cease pouring public funds into moribund state-owned enterprises demonstrates its detachment from and disinterest in the plight of hard-pressed South Africans.
The ANC leadership, including Mr. Mbalula and Minister Godongwana, would do well to look at the damage the ANC’s catastrophic fiscal policy has inflicted on our economy, before shifting the blame to the SARB.
Without substantial deregulation and reform to foster economic activity, South Africa’s economy will remain vulnerable. Inflation will persist, South Africans will become poorer, unemployment will rise, and our economy will not grow.
The SARB’s independence is not only constitutionally decreed but fundamentally crucial to ensure that monetary policy serves all of South Africa’s holistic interests, not merely the narrow interests of any political party. When elected to government in 2024, a DA government will uphold this vital independence and implement fiscally responsible policies to stimulate economic growth, uplift the vulnerable and positioning South Africa competitively on the international stage. It is incumbent upon us to safeguard the autonomy of our institutions and champion policies that truly serve the interests of all South Africans.
Regards
Dr Dion George MP
DA Shadow Minister of Finance
Racy Lady
How do I start a successful news site in South Africa?
Desert Haze
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.