In a recent interview in my home country, Nigeria, I argued against a decision to lower interest rates. I was then asked whether rates should have remained unchanged or been raised instead. My answer was that neither I nor any committee possesses the knowledge required to determine the correct interest rate.

Why should an interest rate sit at 5% when it could sit at 10%? Who should decide?

Modern monetary policy treats this as a job for a committee. In South Africa, the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Monetary Policy Committee studies inflation, unemployment, economic growth and financial conditions before announcing a rate it considers appropriate. It raises the rate when the economy looks “overheated”, whatever that means, and lowers it when economic activity looks weak.

The procedure is so familiar that its main assumption rarely gets examined: that a “right” interest rate exists and that a central authority can find it.

Interest is a market phenomenon that grows out of human action, time preference and the way people value present goods against future goods. The question worth asking is why anyone should believe a central bank can know what the rate ought to be.

Interest Begins With Time

People act through time, and many choices involve deciding whether satisfaction should come sooner or later. Someone who prefers R100 today to R100 in a year values the present good more than the future one. That says nothing about impatience in a psychological sense. It simply describes how the person values things under the circumstances.

This is called time preference. In Austrian economics, originary interest, a term used by Ludwig von Mises, describes the premium placed on present goods over future goods.

Consider R1 million today and R1 million in ten years. The sums are numerically identical, yet they differ economically because only the first can satisfy wants today. That difference in valuation is what interest rests on.

Even if South Africa had no Reserve Bank, no commercial banks and no policy committee, people would still have to choose between present and future consumption.

Interest is often described as the reward for saving, but that gets it slightly wrong. It does not simply pay people for abstaining from consumption. People save because they value some future satisfaction enough to give up a present one, and interest is the market’s expression of that valuation.

If South Africans become more future-oriented, saving rises and the economy can support greater investment in projects that take years to complete. If they become more present-oriented, more resources flow towards current consumption.

Interest rates connect the plans of savers, consumers, entrepreneurs and investors across time.

The Knowledge Problem

Central banking is often described as adjusting a thermostat: inflation too high, raise rates; growth too weak, cut them.

But an economy consists of millions of people with different preferences, expectations, resources and plans.

Picture a Limpopo farmer weighing this season’s expenses against investing in a new irrigation system, a Durban entrepreneur deciding on a five-year expansion, and a Johannesburg manufacturer facing risks nobody else can see.

None of them knows the future, and neither does the Monetary Policy Committee.

The information needed to determine appropriate interest rates exists in scattered form among millions of individuals. Markets bring that information together through prices, and interest rates are among those prices.

This is the broader economic problem of dispersed knowledge, and it applies directly to interest.

The rate on a bank loan also incorporates several things. Beyond originary interest, it reflects risk, uncertainty and expected changes in the rand’s purchasing power.

Different borrowers, maturities and investments carry different rates. There is no single number called “the interest rate” waiting to be calculated. Yet central bank monetary policy attempts to influence this complex system through a single policy rate.

What Happens When Rates Are Pushed Too Low?

Suppose South Africans’ time preferences have not changed, but the central bank expands credit and pushes borrowing costs below where market conditions would otherwise place them.

Entrepreneurs interpret the lower rates as a sign that more resources are available for investment. Longer, more capital-intensive projects suddenly look profitable.

Cheap credit creates purchasing power. It creates no additional machines, factories, skilled workers or raw materials.

Entrepreneurs participating in this boom may be behaving perfectly rationally. The problem is that the price signal they are responding to has been distorted.

The boom looks like prosperity. Investment rises, property prices climb, construction accelerates, hiring picks up, and politicians celebrate.

But the relevant question is whether this investment is backed by real saving.

If it is not, consumers are acting as though they want present consumption while entrepreneurs are acting as though society has freed resources for future production. Both sets of plans cannot necessarily be fulfilled.

Eventually, economic reality reasserts itself. Projects are abandoned, capital is redirected, businesses fail and asset prices fall.

The recession exposes and corrects the errors made during the artificial boom.

This is the central argument of Austrian business-cycle theory: credit expansion can push market rates below the levels that coordinate saving and investment, encouraging malinvestment, or investments that cannot be sustained by the economy’s underlying resources and preferences.

Rates Can Also Be Too High

The opposite error is equally important.

An interest rate artificially maintained above the level that would emerge from voluntary market activity makes otherwise viable investments unattractive.

Projects that could have been profitable go unbuilt, entrepreneurs postpone expansion, and resources may remain idle.

The objection therefore goes further than the claim that central banks sometimes set rates too low.

No central authority should carry responsibility for determining a price that coordinates economic activity across time.

It can err in either direction because the information it needs does not exist as a single number available to policymakers.

The Problem With the “Neutral Rate”

Central banks respond that they are not arbitrarily choosing interest rates. Rather, they are attempting to estimate the rate consistent with an economy operating without excess inflationary or deflationary pressure. This is commonly called the neutral rate.

But if the objective is to discover the rate that would emerge under undistorted market conditions, why not allow markets to determine it?

There is an inherent difficulty in identifying the correct market rate while continually intervening in the process through which that rate would otherwise emerge.

Someone must set the rate, the objection goes.

In a sense, someone does.

A bank decides what to charge on a particular loan, a lender decides what return it requires, and a borrower decides whether a project justifies the cost.

None of that requires a national policy rate.

We have no national bread-price committee determining the correct price for every loaf. Prices throughout the economy emerge from the decisions of buyers and sellers, responding to changing conditions.

Why should interest rates be fundamentally different?

Indeed, the more important a price is for coordinating economic activity, the greater the potential damage caused by systematically distorting it.

Economic conditions also change constantly. Time preferences, risk, technology, capital availability and expectations all shift.

A central bank is therefore chasing a moving target. Each intervention changes the very conditions it is attempting to measure, often creating pressure for further intervention.

A private lender’s mistake imposes losses principally on that lender and those exposed to the decision. A central bank’s mistakes can transmit distortions throughout the entire economy.

What Should Replace Central Bank Rate-Setting?

The answer is to take the committee out of the job.

Interest rates should emerge from voluntary dealings among savers, borrowers, banks, investors and entrepreneurs, operating under secure property rights and enforceable contracts.

Banks should bear the consequences of their own lending decisions rather than relying on government protection from losses.

The resulting interest rates will not be perfect. Market errors are real, and private institutions can make poor decisions.

But those rates will emerge from the choices of the people whose activities they are meant to coordinate, rather than the judgement of a committee attempting to calculate what millions of individuals collectively want.

If a central bank cannot know the correct interest rate, how can we trust a monetary policy framework built around the assumption that it can?

Cheap credit can produce an impressive boom, but a low repo rate is no proof that South Africans have become more willing to postpone consumption.

New money is not the same as new resources. The economy must still reconcile what people want today with what they are prepared to postpone until tomorrow.

The market may not tell us in advance what the interest rate will be. That knowledge was never available to a central planner in the first place.

And that alone is enough reason to question an institution built on the assumption that it knows better than the market.

Econ Bro (@EconBreau and @EconBreau2 on X) is a Nigerian Austro-libertarian economist and an apprentice at the Mises Institute. Through The Freedom Institute, he teaches individual liberty, personal responsibility, private property rights, free markets and sound money, primarily to young Nigerians. He is also an Associate of the Free Market Foundation.

Is this the beginning of the end of ANC rule in South Africa’s cities?

With the 2026 local government elections fast approaching, the ANC faces a serious challenge to its political dominance. From Johannesburg to Durban and Tshwane, opposition parties are positioning themselves to wrest control of South Africa’s major metropolitan municipalities.

But is the ANC really on its way out? Can the DA capitalise on growing dissatisfaction with the ruling party? Will Jacob Zuma’s MK Party deliver another electoral shock? And could South Africans simply be trading ANC mismanagement for another round of dysfunctional coalition governments?

In this episode of the Rational Standard Podcast, host Nicholas Woode-Smith is joined by Dr Martin van Staden and David Ansara to examine the upcoming municipal elections, the parties and personalities fighting for control, and what the results could mean for the future of South African politics.

Together, they discuss the ANC’s declining support, Helen Zille’s political ambitions, the rise of MK, the challenges facing opposition parties, and whether a change in political leadership will actually improve service delivery.

Will the ANC lose its grip on South Africa’s cities, or is it too early to write off the ruling party?

Let us know your election predictions in the comments!

In October 2026, the South African government announced plans to release approximately 2.5 million hectares of state-owned agricultural land to black farmers. The land, acquired through the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS), is to be transferred to beneficiaries with title deeds.

The announcement, made by President Cyril Ramaphosa, forms part of the ANC-led government’s continuing efforts to transform South Africa’s agricultural sector. However, it raises serious concerns about the continued use of racial criteria in allocating public agricultural resources, particularly given the government’s troubling history of failed land reform projects.

Existing state agricultural land-leasing arrangements illustrate the problem. Under the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development’s beneficiary selection and land allocation policies, state land lease applications have explicitly restricted eligibility to previously disadvantaged racial groups. White South Africans are consequently excluded from these opportunities, regardless of their agricultural experience or financial resources.

Although the new announcement concerns the transfer of ownership rather than ordinary leasing arrangements, the government’s continued emphasis on race raises the same fundamental concern: Why should access to publicly owned agricultural land depend on racial classification rather than the ability to farm productively?

Lessons from failed land reform projects

South Africa’s land restitution and redistribution programmes have a long and often disappointing history. In numerous instances, previously productive commercial agricultural enterprises have struggled or collapsed following their transfer to new beneficiaries.

These failures have occurred despite government attempts to provide financial assistance, equipment, training and other forms of post-settlement support. In several cases, commercial partners and experienced agricultural managers have subsequently been brought in to rescue struggling operations.

Two examples illustrate the dangers of transferring agricultural assets without adequate attention to commercial viability.

Zebediela Citrus Estate, Limpopo

Once one of the largest citrus estates in the Southern Hemisphere, Zebediela was a major exporter of oranges and an important source of regional employment.

The estate was transferred to the Bjatladi Communal Property Association in 2003 through the land restitution programme. However, internal governance disputes, financial mismanagement, insufficient commercial expertise and inadequate support contributed to its eventual collapse.

Orchards deteriorated, infrastructure was neglected, and the estate accumulated substantial debt. Repeated attempts at rehabilitation followed, including government assistance and renewed efforts to secure private investment.

By 2026, plans to revive Zebediela again depended on a strategic commercial partnership to restore production and preserve the estate’s economic potential.

Levubu Valley farms, Limpopo

The Levubu Valley provides another example of the difficulties experienced by land restitution beneficiaries.

During the mid-2000s, highly productive macadamia, banana and avocado farms were transferred to claimant communities. The government arranged strategic partnerships with commercial agricultural companies to maintain production and provide management expertise.

However, the initial partnerships encountered serious financial and operational difficulties and ultimately collapsed. Production suffered, some farms accumulated debt, and government intervention was required.

Not every project failed. Some, including the Ravele community’s farming operations, subsequently achieved better results through revised management arrangements and experienced commercial partners.

Nevertheless, research into the Levubu experience demonstrates that transferring ownership without adequate capital, management expertise and effective governance is no guarantee of agricultural success.

The wider problem of governance and productivity

These failures are not isolated incidents. The difficulties experienced by Communal Property Associations (CPAs) demonstrate a broader weakness in South Africa’s land reform framework.

CPAs have repeatedly struggled with internal conflict, leadership disputes, financial mismanagement and poor administrative compliance.

In February 2026, Parliament reported that, of approximately 1,743 registered CPAs recorded in 2024, only 207 were fully compliant, with a further 124 partially compliant.

These figures reflect serious institutional weaknesses that cannot simply be dismissed as isolated administrative problems.

Although land restitution and the allocation of state-owned agricultural land operate through different arrangements, the lessons remain relevant. Agricultural success depends on more than transferring land to beneficiaries. It requires reliable management, sufficient capital, practical experience and sustainable commercial operations.

Government programmes such as the Recapitalisation and Development Programme (RECAP) have attempted to address shortcomings through additional financial and technical support. Yet recurring difficulties demonstrate that government assistance alone cannot guarantee commercial viability.

By continuing to prioritise racial eligibility over broader merit-based competition, the state risks repeating mistakes that have already cost taxpayers substantial sums of money.

Agricultural economics cannot be ignored

Commercial agriculture is a complex business. Successful farming requires technical knowledge, financial management, access to markets, dependable supply chains and the ability to adapt to changing conditions.

These capabilities cannot simply be created overnight through government training programmes or promises of financial assistance.

This does not mean that black South Africans cannot become successful commercial farmers. Numerous examples demonstrate that they can. The issue is not the race of the farmer but whether the individual possesses, or can obtain, the resources and expertise necessary to establish a viable agricultural enterprise.

Experience and competence should matter more than racial classification.

Giving existing farmers title deeds may well improve their access to finance and encourage long-term investment. That is a potentially positive development. However, ownership alone cannot overcome poor management, inadequate capital or ineffective agricultural support.

The consequences of getting these decisions wrong extend beyond individual farms. When productive agricultural enterprises fail, workers lose employment, suppliers lose customers, and communities lose valuable economic activity.

Food security and agricultural supply chains depend on maintaining commercially viable farming operations, not simply meeting politically determined transformation targets.

South Africa cannot afford to allow valuable agricultural land to become unproductive or dependent on repeated taxpayer-funded bailouts.

A pragmatic alternative to racial allocation

The government should move away from rigid racial eligibility criteria and towards agricultural land allocation based on competence, commercial potential and sustainable partnerships.

White South Africans should not be excluded from opportunities to acquire or develop state agricultural land purely because of their race. Equally, emerging black farmers should have access to opportunities that allow them to develop the skills, capital and experience required for commercial success.

A more constructive approach would encourage non-racial land allocation, joint ventures, equity-sharing arrangements and formal mentorship programmes in which established and emerging farmers cooperate from the outset.

Such arrangements can combine existing agricultural expertise with opportunities for new farmers to enter the commercial sector.

A recent example is that of black commercial grain farmer David Lupafya, who described how neighbouring white Afrikaner farmers helped him establish and sustain his farming operation.

When Lupafya encountered financial difficulties, experienced farmers assisted him with equipment, agricultural inputs and other practical support. Their cooperation helped him overcome obstacles that conventional financing arrangements had failed to resolve.

This is precisely the kind of partnership South Africa should encourage.

Instead of treating experienced white commercial farmers as a racial category to be excluded from state programmes, the government should recognise the agricultural knowledge, expertise and resources they can contribute.

Likewise, emerging farmers should be recognised for their ambition, competence and willingness to succeed rather than merely being classified according to race.

The ANC-led government appears unwilling to abandon its commitment to racial engineering, even when the economic consequences of failed interventions are plainly visible.

South Africa should have learned from its history that racial exclusion is an unacceptable foundation for public policy. The discrimination practised under apartheid should not be replaced with new forms of discrimination in the democratic era.

Land reform must deliver prosperity

Land reform should aim to expand agricultural production, create employment, strengthen food security and build lasting wealth.

These objectives require policies that encourage investment, respect individual competence and promote cooperation between farmers, regardless of race.

If the government continues to prioritise ideological transformation over commercial sustainability, South Africa risks condemning more agricultural enterprises to financial distress, neglect and eventual collapse.

The country needs more successful farmers, not more failed government projects.

The ultimate measure of land reform should be the prosperity it creates, not the racial classification of those receiving land.

Piet du Plessis is a retiree with extensive experience in applied socio-economic development. A proud Afrikaner, he believes in the freedom to express one’s cultural identity and values without apology.

Written By: Ian Campbell-Gillies

Ubuntu and capitalism do not, on the face of it, appear to be compatible.

The reasonable response to “What is ubuntu?” invariably reprises Rainbow Nation homilies on post-apartheid hopes. Little else is forthcoming, as if ubuntu were irrelevant.

Some white South Africans, divorced from black South African realities, say it does not exist, pointing to the government’s failure to lead South Africa into economic and political security. For many black South Africans, it exists as “black tax”. Friends and family battling ANC economic disaster simply must be cared for.

I suggest ubuntu is more than that.

A chance meeting with Mfuniselwa John Bhengu on 13 February 2019 led to my reading his and Jordan K. Ngubane’s writings on ubuntu. An IFP member of Parliament for many years, Bhengu stood on the conservative side of South African politics, pursuing the natural connections between African and Western humanism.

In 2019, I was working with the then-chairman of the Umbilo Business Forum, Sikho Msomi, on the causes of unemployment in Durban’s Umbilo. Chatting over coffee, Bhengu challenged us on whether capitalism and ubuntu had anything in common.

Seven years later, I firmly believe the answer is “Absolutely”.

I hold the view that every operating South African business is a working example of the synthesis between African and Western humanism.

Ubuntu in practice

Steve Thusi is a community leader from Dalton Hostel. We were introduced in 2017 when UBA member Jeremy Williams took me on an eye-opening tour of Dalton Hostel to attend a Zulu dance festival. Steve was a long-time UBA member when I joined, and we quickly became mates.

When his employer reduced staff, we started vegetable farming with help from a then-functional Parks and Gardens department. Light was bad and skills too limited, so we switched to recycling in 2018. At one stage, there were ten employees, but drugs and alcohol reduced that to three members in 2022, and that is how it has stayed.

A reconditioned Hyundai still collects cardboard, and the little enterprise has formed a solid base for Steve to pursue a career in politics as a PR councillor for the IFP.

It is never plain sailing.

We assisted the family behind Mzobe’s Restaurant in starting a new eatery on Gale Place in 2024. Our focus was clearing administrative hassles with eThekwini while they sourced funding.

Soon, a smart facility stood on manicured lawns previously occupied by vagrants. But the sewer line was never connected. The facility is kept clean, but jobs for Dalton remain suspended, as does repayment of the loan. Enterprise itself is frustrated by municipal stonewalling and apparent disinterest in the free market as a source of jobs.

I could have said to Bhengu that capitalism and ubuntu make excellent partners, but Marxist state-centric thinking is a crucial problem for community development and job creation.

The economic divide in Umbilo

One must delve deeper into Durban’s Umbilo to research the causes of this socioeconomic discontent.

Umbilo is a fascinating microcosm of South Africa. Sydney Road runs through the precinct, from near the political centre of City Hall to Victoria Mxenge Hospital. Along its length are elements of our economically segregated society.

Large numbers of homeless people camp in King Dinizulu Park, where destitution, drug abuse and the consequences of social collapse are painfully visible.

More recently, documented foreign nationals camped outside the Home Affairs offices for months, creating considerable difficulties for surrounding businesses. Anti-immigrant demonstrations have also brought violence and intimidation to the area, with foreign-owned businesses threatened or attacked.

On 22 October 2026, a foreign national was beaten to death during a march through central Durban. The killing is a tragic illustration of the breakdown in law, order and respect for human dignity.

Shifting up a class is the ANC-controlled eastern side of Sydney Road. About 500 residents live in the condemned Beerhall building. Since a fire swept through part of that historic place, Dalton Road itself has been commandeered with a large tent to accommodate around 300 newly homeless people.

On the western side is IFP-controlled Dalton Hostel, with around 3,000 people somewhat better accommodated. An estimated 70% are unemployed, although figures are not reliable.

Despite official joblessness, a vast range of informal businesses exists in Dalton, helping keep body and soul together.

The aforementioned Mzobe’s Restaurant sells boiled tripe, satisfying hundreds of customers daily. Thusi Junior sells cattle-head meals and enjoys similar success.

Alcoholism is rife. An early childhood school established by Montessori and our UBA has found that its R300 monthly fee is beyond the means of some parents, with substance abuse compounding the problem for some families. Children consequently miss out on schooling.

Yet this heavily subsidised school is a working bridge between the formal and informal sectors. It exists precisely because of the ubuntu initiative to draw the two economies together.

On Khuzimpi Shezi Road, alongside Sydney Road, pavement traders operate amid piles of rubbish. Among them are the muti sellers, holding a mixture of priceless traditional wisdom and more questionable claims in trust for willing buyers.

The UBA has presented investment plans to the municipality to rebuild the Beerhall as a market mall, with present occupants becoming registered shareholders in a collective enterprise that lifts this industry from the gutter.

We receive no response from the eThekwini Business Development Unit.

Dalton Hostel dwellers pay little rent but remain dependent on municipal structures that, in my view, encourage political patronage rather than genuine economic independence.

Handing title to these long-term residents would create a vibrant market overnight. The idea, of course, is rejected.

ANC National Democratic Revolution principles explain why revolutionaries are so bad at economics, so bad at human rights, and so bad at ubuntu.

An economy waiting to be liberated

The apex informal business is the ironically named “Skin Traders”, who repurpose abattoir skins into Zulu cultural attire.

These de facto holders of much Zulu history should be a focal point of tourism. Their market should be worldwide, but it isn’t.

They have endured decades of apartheid and subsequent ANC service delivery failure. Yet not once has the Business Development Unit consulted the UBA on how best to address the extreme poverty and homelessness affecting Dalton.

The immense economic potential of Dalton is being suppressed by the present municipality. If the MK Party wins the forthcoming elections, I expect things to get worse.

If I spoke to Bhengu today, I would argue that the post-apartheid socialist legacy has made Dalton something resembling a gulag, where person-centredness has been replaced with a cattle pen. Sewerage systems mostly do not work, crime is king, and alcohol numbs the shocked ubuntu soul.

The Fanonian illusion has suppressed an educated warrior spirit capable of competing with the world, of putting Zulu history at the centre of a tourism tidal wave.

Sydney Road, south of Dalton, hosts a plethora of companies and corporates, many of which are UBA members alongside the Dalton community.

UBA policy ten years ago to deal with crime and policing failures was obvious: link the formal and informal sectors, promote jobs through the innate power of capitalism, and overlay the new economy with ubuntu humanism.

In fulfilment of this policy, around the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we handed out masks and sanitiser to Dalton residents bearing the UBA logo. National television picked up on the operation, and shortly thereafter the EFF did the same thing.

The benefit of imitation is a marvellous thing.

During Covid, formal-sector donations ensured a steady stream of food parcels, keeping hunger out of Dalton.

An ANC ward councillor, noticeably absent until we provided food to the Beerhall, accused us of trying to buy voters from the ANC. Rather than welcoming assistance to a struggling community, political competition took precedence.

Rediscovering our shared humanism

I would say to John today that while much has been achieved, it is only foundational. The work of rebuilding our hollowed-out identity is a massive task, but ubuntu is the answer to our recovery, in sync with the best traditions of an enlightened Western value system.

I might well reflect back to John the principles I learned from him and suggest their amplification as a remedy for the burying of ubuntu by ruthless black elite entitlement and decades of anti-Western disinformation.

These principles deserve renewed attention:

1. The phrase Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (“A person is a person through other people”) is a highly evolved expression of democracy.

2. The phrase Nkosi yinkosi ngabantu (“A king is a king because of the people”) encapsulates the constitutional restraints of Western separation of powers.

3. Both expressions are held in context by the law, the rich oral tradition of influential aphorisms carrying the collective approval of the people, not merely the state.

4. This person-centred network does not accord with the state-centrism of coercive Eastern and Western traditions of Marxism, dictatorship, religious theocracy or totalitarianism.

5. This network has much more in common with Western traditions of humanism, born out of the Judeo-Christian tradition that gave rise to the ideals of a human-rights-centred society.

I would conclude to Bhengu that African and Western humanism are interlocking values, with the clear ability to revive both our potent economy and our shared identity, following the legendary global success of Springbok rugby partnerships.

The cooperative power of Western and African humanism is well capable of resisting the rising coercive threat to humanism itself and delivering to South Africans the means of living their best lives.

Ian Campbell-Gillies is the author of two books, Hopetown and Black Light. He works in Durban's Umbilo and is the policy director of the Umbilo Business Association.

Written By: Charl Heydenrych

Every Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) arrives cloaked in political theatre, yet leaves the economic table bare. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s latest address followed the familiar script: downward growth revisions, assurances of debt stabilisation at a crippling 78.4% of GDP, and the standard bureaucratic chorus of “structural reforms” under Operation Vulindlela.

The reality is stark. Revising projected economic growth from 1.6% down to 1.2%, while broader unemployment remains above 40%, is not an economic recovery strategy. It is managing a slow-motion collapse. It is the ultimate nothing burger.

The fundamental flaw in South Africa’s economic orthodoxy is the belief that macroeconomic discipline alone can manufacture prosperity. Narrowing deficits and stable credit ratings look orderly in parliamentary spreadsheets, but they do not necessarily produce organic microeconomic vitality.

Operation Vulindlela may incrementally address logistical failures and open more of the electricity sector to private participation, but these technocratic adjustments are insufficient to unlock domestic wealth creation. By leaving state monopolies, restrictive labour laws, and suffocating red tape largely intact, the government continues to lock millions of South Africans out of productive economic participation.

Escaping this low-growth trap requires abandoning the assumption that the state can centrally direct an economic recovery. Growth does not depend solely on state-funded infrastructure pipelines or reformed state-owned enterprises. It begins with the freedom to build, trade, and own.

Property rights and economic freedom

To bridge the chasm between fiscal balance sheets and actual employment, South Africa needs radical microeconomic deregulation. This transition could begin with localised Special Economic Zones (SEZs), operating without state subsidies and enjoying far-reaching exemptions from restrictive regulations.

Consider the Eastern Cape’s Alfred Nzo District, where unemployment has remained persistently high. One of the barriers to prosperity is the prevalence of what economists call “dead capital”: assets that people possess or use but cannot readily leverage to generate wealth.

Vast tracts of communal and state-held land lack individual, transferable title deeds. Without secure and transferable property rights, residents face significant obstacles to obtaining bank financing, attracting commercial investment, and building generational assets.

Fast-tracking the conversion of state-held property into private freehold title, alongside reforms to strengthen transferable rights in communal areas, would establish a foundation for capital accumulation. Initiatives such as Khaya Lam, which helps municipal tenants become property owners, demonstrate the potential of transforming dormant assets into productive capital.

Dismantling the barriers to enterprise

A genuine growth agenda must go further than property rights. It must dismantle the statutory barriers that prevent ordinary South Africans from participating freely in the economy.

Labour market deregulation

South Africa’s centralised bargaining councils and rigid labour mandates price many low-skilled workers out of formal employment. Repealing the extension of collective bargaining agreements to non-signatory small firms, alongside relaxing statutory wage minimums within experimental economic zones, would allow wages to be negotiated more freely between employers and employees.

Employment is a voluntary contract. Removing punitive dismissal procedures and excessive compliance requirements would make it easier for businesses to hire, expand, and create the conditions for labour-intensive industrialisation.

Dismantling state monopolies and licensing restrictions

State-owned enterprises, from Transnet to Eskom, have inflicted immense damage on the national balance sheet and the wider economy. Rather than endlessly restructuring and subsidising these institutions, the government should pursue their privatisation, liquidation, or sale to private operators, without preserving statutory monopolies or providing state guarantees.

At the same time, government must abolish unnecessary licensing bodies, price-setting regulatory boards, and other barriers to market entry. This should include a fundamental overhaul of the mineral rights regime under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA), restoring private ownership and control of subsurface resources to landowners.

Tax and capital rationalisation

The existing tax regime relies on an overburdened direct tax base while restrictive exchange controls discourage investment.

Abolishing capital gains tax, estate duty, and corporate income tax within targeted economic zones, coupled with the complete elimination of exchange controls, would help attract investment and discourage capital flight.

Furthermore, ending race-based and compliance-driven scoring mandates, such as B-BBEE, would replace statutory rent-seeking with merit, competitive pricing, and productive output.

Monetary decentralisation

South Africa should also permit greater monetary competition by removing restrictions on the use of alternative currencies and private payment instruments.

Allowing competing currencies, stable assets, and cryptographic instruments to settle transactions freely would offer businesses and consumers greater choice while reducing their dependence on domestic monetary policy.

Prosperity requires freedom

South Africa does not suffer from a deficit of human talent or ambition. It suffers from a legal and regulatory barricade that prevents ordinary people from creating value.

Shifting decimal points on a budget deficit will not ignite growth. Fiscal discipline may prevent further deterioration, but it cannot substitute for the entrepreneurial freedom necessary to build a prosperous society.

If the state genuinely wants to avert perpetual stagnation, it must relinquish its stranglehold over economic life and give citizens the freedom to build, trade, and prosper.

That would finally put some meat on the budget’s bones.

Charl Heydenrych is a retired human resources practitioner and a libertarian.

South Africa’s latest ranking in the Economic Freedom of the World index is not a statistic to be dismissed lightly. It serves as a mirror reflecting decades of policy decisions that have progressively restricted the opportunities for ordinary people to improve their lives.

In the 2026 report, released a few weeks ago by the Free Market Foundation in collaboration with Canada’s Fraser Institute, South Africa fell to 87th place out of 165 jurisdictions. Our overall score stands at 6.63 out of 10. We have slipped from 83rd the previous year and, more tellingly, we are less free today than we were at our peak around the year 2000.

This is not an abstract ranking. Economic freedom measures the extent to which individuals can make their own decisions regarding work, trade, investment, and exchange without excessive interference. The index assesses five areas: the size of government, the legal system and property rights, sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation.

Only sound money has remained roughly steady compared to a quarter of a century ago. Elsewhere, the trend has been downward. Government spending consumes more than a third of GDP and routinely exceeds revenue. Labour regulations remain among the most rigid. Property rights and the impartial enforcement of contracts continue to face pressure.

These are not minor technicalities; they are the rules that determine whether a young person in a township can open a spaza shop, employ a helper, or expand without being overwhelmed by compliance costs.

The evidence linking economic freedom to prosperity is unequivocal. Countries that score higher like Mauritius, Seychelles, Cabo Verde in the African context or Costa Rica AND Chile if one look further abroad, enjoy higher average incomes, lower poverty rates, longer life expectancy, and greater personal freedom.

This relationship holds across cultures and political systems. When people are free to own property, trade, innovate, and retain the rewards of their efforts, investment follows, productivity increases, and living standards improve. Conversely, when that freedom is restricted, growth stagnates and unemployment becomes structural.

South Africa’s experience confirms this pattern. Real GDP per capita has increased only modestly since the early 1990s, while several African peers that improved their economic freedom scores have more than doubled their average incomes over the same period. We started off richer than most of them but have been overtaken in relative dynamism by countries that regarded liberty as a practical foundation rather than a secondary concern.

The problem is not a shortage of entrepreneurial energy among South Africans. From informal traders to small manufacturers, millions already demonstrate daily the capacity for discovery and problem-solving that economists of the Austrian School identified as the engine of progress. The problem lies in a policy environment that actively suppresses that energy.

Labour laws designed for large, organised workplaces impose costs that small employers cannot absorb. Licensing requirements, sector-specific interventions, and the constant threat of new regulatory burdens increase the cost of formal employment.

An expansive state claims an ever-larger share of the social product, crowding out private investment and necessitating higher taxes or increasing debt. Protectionist impulses and industrial policies that favour connected interests further distort the benefits of specialisation and voluntary exchange.

These policies are based on a familiar yet flawed premise: that a small group of officials can plan the economic lives of millions more effectively than those individuals can plan for themselves. Both history and data refute this premise. Value is subjective, and no central authority can fully comprehend the constantly shifting preferences and knowledge dispersed among individuals.

Attempts to impose top-down solutions produce shortages, unemployment, and the gradual erosion of the very institutions—namely, secure property, predictable rules, and open trade—that allow cooperation to flourish.

We have travelled far enough down the road of state interventionism. The result is anaemic growth, a labour market that excludes millions from formal opportunities, and a ranking that places us behind jurisdictions that once looked to us as an example.

The alternative is not complicated, though it requires political courage. Reduce the size and scope of government so that more resources remain in private hands. Liberalise labour markets to allow employers and jobseekers to contract freely, including through time-bound exemptions that reopen opportunities for the long-term unemployed.

Secure property rights in practice. Remove barriers to trade and entry so that ordinary South Africans can compete and innovate without first seeking permission from the state. These reforms do not require perfect conditions or new industrial master plans; they require only the recognition that prosperity is created by free people interacting voluntarily, not by the state directing their lives.

South Africans are not uniquely incapable of growth. We are, however, uniquely burdened by a consensus that regards economic freedom as optional rather than essential. The latest EFW ranking serves as a clear warning. Without widespread liberalisation, we will continue to endure the predictable consequences of restricted choice: stagnant incomes, high unemployment, and the gradual constriction of opportunity.

The path to a different future lies in expanding the freedoms that evidence shows are effective. Anything less will see us continue down the road to serfdom.

Zakhele Mthembu, BA Law LLB (Wits), is Policy Officer at the Free Market Foundation.

South Africa has an unemployment catastrophe.

According to Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2026, the official unemployment rate has risen to 33.6%. Around 8.5 million South Africans are unemployed. Politicians respond to numbers like these with jobs summits, employment programmes, subsidies and promises of industrialisation.

But the same government that claims to desperately want jobs maintains laws that make employing people more expensive, riskier and more politically complicated. South Africa will not solve unemployment through another government programme; we need businesses to start, grow and employ people.

That means making employment easier.

If government is serious about unemployment, three laws should be first against the wall: the Labour Relations Act (LRA), the National Minimum Wage Act (NMW) and the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BEE).

The Labour Relations Act

Employing someone is a risk. This is especially true when hiring an inexperienced young person with no track record, few skills and perhaps no references. An employer does not know whether that person will be productive, reliable or even suitable for the job.

In a country with millions of unemployed people, government policy should be designed to make taking that risk as attractive as possible. Instead, the LRA makes hiring someone the beginning of a potentially expensive legal relationship.

Under section 188 of the LRA, an employer must establish both a fair reason and fair procedure when dismissing an employee. Once the employee establishes that a dismissal occurred, section 192 places the burden on the employer to prove that the dismissal was fair. Remedies for unfair dismissal can include reinstatement, re-employment or compensation.

Big companies can absorb these risks. A small business with five employees may not be able to. The rational response is obvious: don’t hire unless you are certain.

The LRA also empowers bargaining councils to extend agreements to businesses that were not parties to the original negotiations. Section 32 allows collective agreements concluded in bargaining councils to be extended to non-parties within their scope.

This allows established businesses and trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions that smaller competitors may then be expected to obey. Large companies can often afford these costs. In fact, imposing expensive labour conditions on an entire industry can suit them perfectly. Their smaller competitors are the ones who suffer.

There is evidence that this costs jobs. Research into South African bargaining councils found that extensions of updated bargaining council agreements were associated with an employment decline of approximately 8%.

This is regulation that protects insiders at the expense of outsiders. The employee who already has a job receives elaborate protections, while the unemployed person trying desperately to get their first job is made more expensive and risky to hire.

The LRA should be radically stripped bare. Employers and employees should be free to determine their own relationships, with the law concentrating on fraud, coercion, genuine abuse and the enforcement of contracts.

South Africans need to be hirable. That means they also need to be fire able.

The National Minimum Wage Act

The national minimum wage increased to R30.23 per hour from 1 March 2026. At 40 hours a week, the Department of Employment and Labour calculates this at about R5,239 per month before considering other employment costs.

Government can legislate a minimum wage; it cannot legislate a worker’s productivity.

Imagine an unemployed young person with no experience who can initially produce R25 worth of value for a business every hour. An employer may be perfectly willing to pay them R25 while they learn skills, gain experience and become more productive.

Government says this transaction is illegal.

The worker does not magically become productive enough to justify R30.23 an hour because a minister published a figure in the Government Gazette. Instead, the employer may simply decline to hire them. The intended beneficiary then earns nothing.

South Africa is not a wealthy country tinkering with wages while unemployment sits at 4%. We have 8.5 million unemployed people. Under those circumstances, placing a legal floor under the price of labour carries an especially dangerous risk of shutting the least skilled and least experienced out of employment.

A low wage is not desirable, but unemployment is not a high wage.

The true minimum wage of an unemployed South African is zero.

The best way for low-paid workers to earn more is to gain experience, improve their productivity and compete in an economy where employers are fighting over workers. You cannot begin that process if the first rung of the ladder has been made illegal.

Black Economic Empowerment

BEE compounds the problem by punishing businesses when they grow.

The B-BBEE Commission classifies businesses according to turnover. Businesses below R10 million generally qualify as Exempted Micro Enterprises. Those above R10 million but below R50 million become Qualifying Small Enterprises, while businesses above R50 million are classified as large enterprises.

A rational government should celebrate when a R9 million business becomes a R12 million business. That business is expanding; it may be hiring people, purchasing equipment, opening branches and investing in its community.

Instead, the South African government rewards growth with additional regulatory obligations.

A 2026 survey by Codera Analytics and XA Global Trade Advisors examined 126 firms ranging from small owner-operated businesses to companies with revenues above R1 billion. Among firms facing BEE compliance costs, reported median initial setup costs across compliance categories ranged from R160,000 to R650,000, with ongoing annual costs ranging from R225,000 to R2.5 million.

The survey is not nationally representative, so its figures should not be treated as an economy-wide estimate. But its findings should still alarm anyone interested in employment. Only 4% of surveyed firms reported that BEE had increased net employment, compared with 35% reporting lower net employment, almost half reporting reduced reinvestment and more than 40% reporting reduced new investment.

Every rand spent restructuring a company around a government scorecard is a rand that cannot be spent somewhere else. It could have bought machinery, funded expansion, paid for advertising or employed someone.

BEE turns ordinary business decisions about ownership, suppliers, employment and investment into political exercises. South Africa should be encouraging businesses to grow as large and productive as possible, not creating regulatory cliffs that give entrepreneurs reasons to fear expansion.

BEE should be scrapped.

Let South Africans work

Repealing these three laws would not magically cure South Africa’s economy. We still need reliable electricity, functioning infrastructure, better education, lower taxes, secure property rights and far less government interference throughout the economy.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act also needs substantial liberalisation, as do countless licensing requirements and other regulations that make starting and running businesses needlessly difficult. But the philosophy needs to change.

Government cannot declare unemployment a national emergency while simultaneously treating employers as suspects, workers as permanent liabilities and growing businesses as targets for additional regulation.

A country with millions of unemployed people should make hiring as easy as possible. We do not need another jobs summit or another government employment scheme.

Scrap the laws that punish hiring, punish growth and punish investment. Then get out of the way and let South Africans work.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is a political analyst and author. He is the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity.

By treating illegal immigration with decades of passive tolerance, institutional inefficiency, and periodic token crackdowns, the ANC-in-government created a human crisis: inviting vulnerable individuals to build lives in South Africa, only to leave them unprotected when societal tensions boiled over into vigilante violence.

Let’s face it: the ANC-in-government’s 30-year policy toward illegal immigrants was not one of compassionate tolerance, but of calculated neglect, a structural cruelty that tacitly permitted millions to integrate, only to abandon them to violent vigilante justice when public frustration exploded.

Decades of Institutional Inertia

For over three decades, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) operated under systemic backlogs, corruption, and porous border management. Rather than enforcing strict border controls or establishing workable, legal pathways for regional migration, the government permitted undocumented migrants to settle, work, and build families.

False Sense of Security

This long-term passive tolerance created a de facto sanctuary environment. Immigrants integrated into townships and local economies, believing they were tolerated by the state, exposing them to catastrophic risk when policy shifts or popular sentiment soured.

Governance by Reaction and Half-Hearted Measures

Historical evidence, from the 2008 and 2015 xenophobic outbreaks to Operation Dudula and recent violence against immigrants in Durban and Soweto, shows a consistent pattern: the government remained largely passive until public anger turned violent.

Post-outbreak responses, such as sporadic raids, temporary task teams, short-lived border deployments, and even army deployments in urban areas, served primarily as political theatre to placate domestic voters, rather than long-term policy solutions.

Once international headlines faded, enforcement reverted to passive tolerance, resetting the violent cycle.

Rise of Vigilantism

The emergence of movements like March and March in 2026 and the subsequent unrest in urban centres like Durban and Soweto demonstrate a complete breakdown of the state’s monopoly on violence.

The state has largely become a spectator. When citizens take policing into their own hands, the state’s failure to maintain order and protect human rights within its borders becomes an omission of its constitutional and international duties.

International Moralising vs. Domestic Inaction

The government frequently takes strong moral stances in international forums, such as the United Nations or the International Court of Justice, regarding human rights abuses elsewhere, while failing to protect vulnerable populations within its own sovereign territory.

This contrast underscores the double standards and ethical inconsistency between external ANC-in-government human rights advocacy and its internal governance failures.

The ANC-in-Government’s Case Against Israel

The ANC-in-government’s case against Israel was rich, given that under international human rights law, such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, states have a positive obligation to protect the right to life and right to security of person for all individuals within their jurisdiction, regardless of legal status.

A government violates its international obligations not only by committing direct acts of violence, but also by failing to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and punish private acts of violence (vigilantism).

Cruelty by Default

By engineering a system of perceived impunity for illegal immigrants over more than 30 years of ANC rule in South Africa, and failing to enforce order during predictable outbreaks, the state is contributorily negligent in the resulting human rights violations which regularly took place over decades.

It boils down to severe cruelty against human beings.

Piet du Plessis is a retiree with a long history of applied socio-economic development. A liberated Afrikaner who has moved beyond self-flagellation, he believes that he has been freed to live out his cultural pride and values, and to proclaim them openly when appropriate.

Written By: Matsheole Majoro

Every few months, a business leader or politician talks about South Africa’s employment crisis by saying that young people lack skills: “they are not ready for work”, “they don’t have the right attitude”, and “they are unemployable”. The word is used casually, but it carries a heavy connotation; if millions of people cannot find work, then surely the problem must be them.

That explanation is convenient for the people who repeat it. It moves the attention away from the labour market itself and avoids asking why employers are so hesitant to hire and why entry-level jobs have become so scarce and why the cost of employing someone is so high. The real challenge is the framework of the labour market.

Looking at what an employer faces when hiring a young and inexperienced worker, there is a national minimum wage that must be paid despite of productivity or experience. There are payroll taxes, UIF contributions and skills development levies. There are bargaining council agreements that go beyond union-negotiated table. There are dismissal procedures that make it hard and costly to end an employment relationship that isn’t working. There are employment equity requirements that contribute to administrative burden and legal risk.

These rules exist for a reason, minimum wages are meant to prevent exploitation, equity requirements are meant to correct historical injustices. These rules make hiring an inexperienced worker an expensive and risky decision. The employer who might have taken a chance on someone young now hires someone with a proven track record or chooses not to hire at all. The people who carry the cost of that decision are the same people the rules were meant to protect.

South Africa has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world: the unemployment rate among young people aged 15 to 34 is above 60 percent. These numbers don’t reflect a generation that simply refuses to work; they reflect a labour market that has priced young people out of entry.

The informal sector, which soaks up the surplus labour in most developed economies, stays relatively small in South Africa. This is not because South Africans don’t have entrepreneurial spirit, its because the informal economy is heavily regulated. Trading permits, health inspections and municipal laws make it hard to operate legally. Research shows that nearly 80 percent of informal businesses are unregistered. Many informal traders survive regardless of the state rather than because of it.

The skills debate is exaggerated; South Africa does not have shortage of artisans, engineers and healthcare workers. There are thousands of graduates in fields with no labour demand. The incompatibility is not between what workers can do and what employers need but between what the state is willing to fund and what the market rewards. This is used as an excuse to avoid tackling the barriers that keep young people out of work.

South Africans do not need another government training programme or a new youth employment scheme. The solution is the get rid of barriers that keep young people out of work. If an employer wants to hire someone with no experience, the national minimum wage should not stand in the way of a freely negotiated agreement. As skills grow, wages increase, this is how entry-level work has always worked in free labour markets. Trail periods should mean something: an employer who takes a chance on an inexperienced worker should be able to end the arrangement without facing a lengthy and costly legal process. Small firms should not be liable by wage rates by large manufacturers and unions. A spaza shop with 4 employees should be able to negotiate its own terms with its own workers.

The regulatory weight placed on informal traders should be lifted; a person selling food from her kitchen should not need a certificate of acceptability. Every licence that is terminated is a job that becomes legal.

The state needs to stop making employment expensive and enterprise illegal. Employers will hire when hiring is worth the risk, young people will work when work is available. The word ‘unemployable’ says a lot about the labour market more than it does about the people looking jobs.

The skills are there, the will is there, but the opportunity is not. Stop blaming the unemployed for a system that was created to exclude them. A country that makes it easier to hire will discover that the unemployable suddenly becomes employable.

Matsheole Majoro is a final year International Relations student and an associate of the Free Market foundation.

Is the University of Cape Town (UCT) punishing free speech? David Ansara faces a recommended six-month suspension from UCT Council, while advocate Mark Oppenheimer faces possible expulsion. Now, Ansara joins the Rational Standard Podcast to discuss the controversy firsthand.

Host Nicholas Woode-Smith is joined by David Ansara, CEO of the Free Market Foundation and UCT Council member, and Dr Martin van Staden, constitutional scholar and Head of Policy at the Free Market Foundation, to examine the growing controversy over freedom of expression and academic freedom at one of South Africa’s most prestigious universities.

The controversy follows Mark Oppenheimer’s outspoken criticism of antisemitism at UCT and the university’s restrictions on academic cooperation with Israel. After Ansara publicly defended Oppenheimer, both men became the subjects of disciplinary proceedings. An independent inquiry recommended expelling Oppenheimer and suspending Ansara for six months. UCT Council has referred the recommendations for further consideration before a final decision on sanctions.

But this is far from UCT’s first controversy over academic freedom.

From the cancellation of Flemming Rose’s 2016 academic freedom lecture, to the treatment of controversial academics during the Fallist protests, the Nicoli Nattrass affair, and UCT’s restrictions on academic ties with Israel, the university has repeatedly faced accusations of ideological intolerance and suppressing dissent.

In this episode, we examine whether UCT is once again sacrificing academic freedom to political ideology, whether university officials should be punished for criticising their own institutions, and what this controversy means for freedom of speech across South Africa.

Can a university that claims to defend academic freedom justify punishing its own critics? And if dissent is no longer tolerated at UCT, what does that mean for South African academia?

Written By: Matsheole Majoro

South Africa’s minibus taxi industry moves roughly 15 million commuters every day. It produces an estimated R90 billion to R100 billion in annual revenue. It employs hundreds of thousands of people and in 2021, the whole sector provided approximately R5million in corporate income tax from the entire sector.

The R5 million number needs context. SARS confirmed that this amount includes tax collected from employment income, and the industry “does not correctly disclose income from taxi business on their CIT returns” (Claasen, 2021) because it is filed under a generic income source code. Most operators declare a 0 return or receive a refund. This is corporate tax specifically; it does not represent the industry total tax contribution.

The taxi industry’s representatives refuse the accusation of widespread evasion. Its SANTACO argues that most operators run their businesses as independent owners and are taxed individuals under personal income tax. They produce tax clearance certificates when renewing operating licenses. “The current tax framework does not fully accommodate the informal nature of the industry,” SANTACO said, calling for reforms to the structure rather than accusing its members of dishonesty.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwanan has recognised the taxi industry, as well as the e-hailing services, as a priority sector for tax compliance. SARS has registered nearly 22,000 previously unregistered informal taxpayers since 2024, creating R314 million in additional revenue. The push to bring taxis into the tax net is being framed as a matter of fairness. Bus companies charge VAT, E-hailing services pay payroll taxes, why should minibuses be exempt?

Most taxi fares are paid in cash with no receipts and no paper trail. Many operators do not keep official accounting records. The relationship between taxi owners and drivers is often informal, managed by verbal agreements and daily targets rather than written contracts. SARS cannot tax what it cannot see, it cannot levy VAT on transactions that leave no trace. It cannot withhold PAYE from workers who are not formally employed. The state is trying to collect from an industry that operates the way markets operate when the state is absent, informally, flexibly and entirely outside bureaucratic reach.

Governments and organisations like OUTA respond by demanding formalisation. Bring the industry into the tax net, make operators register for VAT, necessitate employment contracts, enforce obedience through licencing conditions. This approach assumes that the problem is a lack of enforcement and the more enforcement will create more revenue. It will create more costs, more bureaucracy and more opportunities for corruption.

South Africa’s tax system is constructed for formal employment and large corporations. It does not fit an industry that is built on cash, small margins and individual enterprise. Subduing taxi operators to the full corporate tax regime, VAT registrations and payroll obligations would crush the smallest operators and drive them further underground. The formalisation agenda would not widen the tax base; it would shrink the industry.

The real question is why this industry works outside the formal economy in the first place; the answer is that the formal economy is costly to enter and difficult to remain in. Compliance costs, licencing fees, and complex tax obligations make casualness the rational choice for small operators. The state has built a wall around the formal economy and then complains that people are standing outside it.

The solution is to drag the taxi industry into the formal economy by force, it is to make the formal economy worth joining. This means dramatically simplifying the tax regime for small operators. A single presumptive tax, filed through a phone with no VAT registration and no accounting requirements, would let any operator to obey in minutes. It would cost the state almost nothing to administer and would raise revenue from thousands of businesses that are falling below the threshold of visibility.

Banks and private lenders should be free to serve the industry on commercial terms. Taxi operators create predictable daily revenue; they are not fundamentally unbankable. They are not banked because lenders cannot verify their income and cannot confiscate their assets if they default. Take away the permit restrictions that make vehicle difficult to reclaim, acknowledge route data and passenger revenue as real collateral, and private credit will flow. A taxi owner who can borrow does not require a state grant, taxi owner who can open a bank account does not need a government financial inclusion programme.

Taxi associations already execute many of the functions that government claims only it can execute. They set standards, resolve conflict, and manage routes. Where these functions are optional and competitive, they should be acknowledged and not replaced. Where a single association holds market power over a route, the answer is not state regulation. It is allowing competitor associations to compete for the same commuters. Competition creates accountability significantly better than any inspectors.

Stokvels and community saving schemes already move billions of rand through the informal economy every year. They provide credit, insurance and financial services to people the banks have abandoned. These institutions don’t require formalised state-approved vehicles. They need to be left alone; they have survived for decades without licence and without a subsidy. They will continue to serve their member long after the next compliance campaign if forgotten.

The tax base will not be expanded by chasing cash-based operators. It will be expanded by growing the economy so that more people earn taxable income in the first place. That means fewer regulations, lower taxes, and state that stops treating every informal enterprise as a suspect. A country that makes formality cheap and casualness unnecessary will collect more revenue without chasing anyone, the taxi industry is not the problem, the problem is a state that has made the formal economy too costly to enter and then turns the blame those who stay outside.

Matsheole Majoro is a final year International Relations student and an associate of the Free Market foundation.

Written By: Dr. Oluwaseun Adeoye Oyebamiji

The most accessible measure of inflation in Nigeria is not a bulletin but a chalkboard. In markets across the country, sellers write prices in chalk rather than paint, because paint assumes tomorrow will resemble today. A trader repricing her stock weekly is not being opportunistic. She is doing arithmetic the currency forces on her.

Inflation is usually discussed here as a cost-of-living problem, which it is, and rarely as an information problem, which it also is. A price is how an economy signals what is scarce. When the general price level moves quickly and unevenly, that signal becomes unreadable. A manufacturer cannot tell whether his input costs rose because the material became scarcer, in which case he should substitute, or because money lost value, in which case he should not.

Multiply that across millions of decisions and the coordinating function of the market degrades. This was Hayek’s central observation about prices, and Nigeria has been an unwilling demonstration of it.

The current position should be stated precisely, because loose numbers invite dismissal. Headline inflation stood at 15.93 per cent in May 2026, up from 15.69 per cent in April and 15.38 per cent in March, the third consecutive monthly increase, and well below the 26.06 per cent of May 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Month-on-month inflation eased to 1.75 per cent from 2.13 per cent, so the pace of increase slowed even as the annual rate rose. Food inflation was 16.96 per cent year on year.

These figures rest on the rebased Consumer Price Index using 2024 as the base year, which means they are not directly comparable with the headline readings above thirty per cent published under the previous methodology. The earlier inflation was real. The difficulty is methodological comparability, not historical fiction.

So the accurate summary is narrower than the triumphant one. Inflation is far below its 2025 level, the disinflation is real, and it has stalled and partially reversed over the last three months.

The Central Bank’s first rate cut in years came in February 2026, when the Monetary Policy Committee reduced the benchmark rate by 50 basis points, from 27 per cent to 26.5 per cent, according to Nairametrics and TheCable.

By the time the Committee met again in May 2026, it chose to hold rather than cut further, leaving the rate at 26.5 per cent through the month the inflation figures above describe, as reported by Nairametrics and Telegraph Nigeria.

The easing had already happened and already stopped by the time headline inflation resumed its climb.

The causes are plural. Nigerian inflation has reflected a combination of monetary conditions, exchange rate movements, food supply disruption, energy and logistics costs and fiscal pressures. Assigning primacy to any one of these is a claim requiring evidence that this argument does not need.

Several of the drivers sit outside the central bank’s reach, which is why interest rates alone will not finish the job. Food inflation driven by insecurity in growing areas does not respond to a policy rate.

Ayittey’s contribution concerns incidence rather than causation. His analysis of postcolonial African economies returned repeatedly to arrangements that transferred value from producers, particularly farmers and market traders, to a governing class.

Inflation performs that transfer without legislation, assessment or a collector. It falls hardest on those holding cash rather than assets, which in Nigeria means the market trader more than the property owner, and it is diffuse enough that nobody is held responsible.

It is a levy that reaches everyone and appeared on no ballot.

The counterargument is not trivial. Tight money is expensive. The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria reports average prime lending rates of about 27 per cent as of May 2026, with maximum rates near 35 to 36 per cent, even after the policy rate came down, according to Leadership, Nairametrics and Tribune Online.

Bank credit to the manufacturing sector fell by ₦1.92 trillion in a single year, from ₦8.53 trillion in December 2024 to ₦6.61 trillion in December 2025, according to Leadership.

Every percentage point of policy rate has a factory attached to it, and anyone arguing for monetary discipline should say plainly that it has victims.

But the alternative is worse and Nigerians have lived it. A country that inflates its way through fiscal pressure does not avoid the cost. It distributes the cost to whoever is least able to hedge.

High interest rates announce themselves and can be reversed. Inflation arrives unannounced and cannot be refunded.

What sustains disinflation is not central bank resolve alone. It is fiscal restraint, agricultural output, which requires the security discussion nobody enjoys, and data published reliably enough that expectations can settle on something real.

The chalkboard is the test.

When Nigerian traders start painting their prices again, the reform will have worked, and no statistical release will be needed to confirm it.

Dr. Oluwaseun Adeoye Oyebamiji is a development economist and agricultural policy researcher whose work examines food security, poverty, markets, agricultural policy and economic development, particularly in Africa. His research combines empirical evidence with policy analysis to examine contemporary economic and development issues.

It is no secret that South Africa spends a massive amount of money on education.

Nearly 20% of her total government expenditure – equivalent to around 6% to 6.7% of GDP – is allocated to education. Of this, roughly 68% is allocated to basic education.

It is also no secret that roughly 78% of provincial education budgets is consumed by employee compensation.

Despite this, South Africa has been dogged by an education crisis of massive proportions for years, with teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms among its major contributing factors.

Against this backdrop, the number of unemployed teachers has also been steadily increasing over the years.

Naturally, a question that should arise at this point is how there can be a shortage of teachers in a context where classrooms, particularly in disadvantaged communities, are overcrowded and teacher-to-pupil ratios are high.

Chief Economist at the Efficient Group, Dawie Roodt, has provided a discomforting yet necessary response to it. Roodt has essentially argued that employed teachers are “overpaid”, and that their high salaries are preventing the government from hiring more teachers whose employment can improve the quality of education. The solution, according to him, is to cut their salaries in half, expand the teacher workforce, and ensure greater accountability when it comes to the performance of teachers.

Unsurprisingly, Roodt has come under attack from the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and the Public Servants Association (PSA) for his comments.

Both unions have dismissed him as “reckless”, rubbished his comments about teachers being overpaid, highlighted the challenges they face, and called on the government to increase investment in basic education and ensure that existing educational resources are allocated more efficiently.

I say unsurprisingly because SADTU and the PSA are unions that primarily exist to advance the sectional interests of their members. Their primary interest is not the education of the largely black and disadvantaged learners for whom education is a pathway out of generational poverty.

This fact is important to underscore in any honest discussion about basic education in South Africa.

The sectional interests of SADTU and the PSA are obviously rational and not sinister, but they are not always identical to those of learners, and it is easy to see how the two can come into conflict when they diverge.

Salaries are a particularly sensitive issue because they represent people’s livelihoods and their subjective valuation of what their labour is worth, so a discomforting discussion around them can understandably become very emotionally charged.

I have a faint memory of myself in Grade 2 in 2010 sitting in a classroom and watching visibly enraged adults protest outside my primary school. I would learn years later that the heated protest had been organised by SADTU members who were in disagreement with the then government over salary increases.

To be fair, Reuben Maleka, the General Manager of the PSA, is not wrong about the genuine challenges that teachers face. He is right about the ever-rising cost of living in South Africa, and he is also right about the many good teachers in the basic education system who go out of their way to ensure that learners receive the best education possible, even under the most challenging circumstances.

Beyond this, it is true that the drivers of the education crisis in the country are multidimensional.

And yet, all these nuances do not settle the question of whether the existing allocation of educational resources is adequately serving the interests of learners.

If Maleka has acknowledged that these resources need to be allocated more efficiently, then he may need to contend with the reality that wasteful expenditure, outsourcing, and unnecessary administrative costs are not the only issues when it comes to resource allocation.

While I will not use the term “overpaid” as Roodt has - because I have not crunched the figures - it is patently clear that a massive portion of provincial education budgets is already being allocated to employee compensation. Comparatively little is being allocated to other critical areas, and this fact cannot simply be sidestepped with fearmongering about a potential reduction in teacher morale and productivity.

Even if the issues Maleka identified are eventually addressed, the elephant in the room will remain.

It is plainly evasive of him to argue that the pie is still not big enough. And even if we accept that this is true, how exactly is the pie supposed to be made bigger?

Where will the broke South African government find more money to spend on a sector that is already so massively funded?

Prof Thomas Sowell reminds us that there are no perfect solutions; there are only trade-offs.

The idea that we can simply call for increased investment from the government without having a discomforting discussion about the allocation of educational resources is not only evasive, but also untenable.

There is no perfect scenario in which we can satisfy competing interests without making trade-offs or incurring costs elsewhere.

At some point, we will need to have the discussion. And ultimately, the interests of learners – and not unions – will have to prevail.

Ayanda Sakhile Zulu holds a BSocSci in Political Studies from the University of Pretoria and is a Policy Officer at the Free Market Foundation.

Sovereignty is not the exclusive preserve of kings, parliaments, or international bureaucracies. At its core, it is the recognition that human beings are not the playthings of higher powers. From a libertarian perspective, true sovereignty begins with the individual. Every adult owns themselves. They own their body, their labour, and the justly acquired fruits of that labour. This self-ownership is the non-negotiable foundation upon which any legitimate claim to collective authority must rest.

Libertarianism does not begin with the state; it begins with the individual. The non-aggression principle follows directly from this: no one may initiate force against another person or their property. From this simple moral insight flows the entire framework of a free society. Government – if it is to exist at all – exists only by the consent of those it claims to govern, and only to the extent necessary to protect life, liberty, and property. Anything beyond that is usurpation.

Yet, we do not live in a pure state of nature. We live under constitutional democracies that grant adults the formal right to vote and to participate in selecting those who will exercise political power. This fact is decisive. When a democratic system is established on the premise that adult citizens possess rights and the capacity to choose their representatives, the outcomes of that process must be respected. To do otherwise is to declare that the adult franchise – and by implication their agency – is a mere decorative fiction.

Libertarians are often accused of hostility towards democracy. This accusation is misplaced. What libertarians reject is the idea that democracy grants an unlimited licence for majorities to violate individual rights. Libertarianism affirms that, within a system that already recognises adults as rights-bearing agents capable of voting, the results of free and fair elections carry both moral and practical weight.

They represent the closest approximation of collective consent available in large-scale societies. To disregard these results in the name of superior moral insight, international opinion, or judicial preference is to treat adult citizens as children who cannot be trusted with the consequences of their own choices.

Consider the alternative. If democratic outcomes can be disregarded whenever they inconvenience a particular ideological faction, then the right to vote is rendered meaningless. Adults are told they may participate in the process, but only so long as they produce the ‘correct’ result. This is not liberalism; it is guardianship disguised in the language of ‘freedom’.

A system that grants adults the right to vote must, if it is to remain coherent, accept the possibility that those adults will sometimes make poor choices by the standards of outsiders. The remedy for bad choices is better persuasion, institutional reform, and the next election. Not the nullification of the previous one.

In this context, sovereignty is the political expression of adult agency. A people who can vote possess the capacity to determine, within the limits of individual rights, the character of the institutions under which they live. This includes the right to maintain control over their borders, their laws, and the allocation of public resources.

It includes the right to reject external prescriptions that treat local democratic decisions as provisional and subject to override by distant authorities. National sovereignty is not a rejection of individual liberty; rather, it is the necessary space in which a community of rights-bearing individuals can exercise collective self-determination without being permanently subordinated to the preferences of others.

None of this necessitates the romanticisation of the nation-state. Libertarians should remain appropriately sceptical of concentrated political power. Advocates of freedom must insist that even democratic governments are bound by the same moral limits that constrain private individuals. In other words, they may not infringe upon the persons or property of those within their jurisdiction.

Constitutional constraints, the separation of powers, federalism, and the right of exit all serve to keep democratic authority within bounds. However, within those bounds, decisions reached through the adult franchise deserve deference. To demand perpetual judicial or international supervision over every democratic outcome is to deny the very capacity that the franchise is intended to recognise.

The African – and more specifically the South African – experience sharpens this point. For too long, the peoples of this continent were denied formal recognition of their adult agency by colonial and apartheid regimes. The achievement of universal adult suffrage was not a minor administrative reform; it was a declaration that black South Africans, and Africans more broadly, are full moral agents capable of governing themselves.

To treat the outcomes of that suffrage as optional, or to routinely subordinate them to external norms that local majorities have not adopted, risks reintroducing a form of guardianship under a different guise. Respect for democratic outcomes is therefore not a concession to majoritarianism; it is fidelity to the principle that adults, once granted the right to vote, must be allowed to live with the consequences of their collective choices.

Libertarianism provides the moral framework for this position. Individual self-ownership establishes the right to consent. Consent, aggregated through the democratic process within a system that already recognises adult rights, generates legitimate political authority within defined limits.

Sovereignty is the term we use to describe the authority exercised by a people over their own affairs. It is not absolute and does not permit aggression against individuals. However, it is not optional either. A democracy that grants adults the right to vote but systematically disregards the results of that vote has ceased to take its own principles seriously.

The task, then, is neither to abolish sovereignty in the name of abstract cosmopolitanism or some ideological aim that would undermine it in one way or another, nor to elevate it into an idol that overrides every individual right. Rather, the task is to ground it where it belongs: in the dignity of the adult human being who owns themselves, who votes, and who is entitled to the respect that such ownership and participation demand.

Anything less would quietly revert to the notion that some people are only fit to be governed by others.

Zakhele Mthembu, BA Law LLB (Wits), is Policy Officer at the Free Market Foundation.

South Africa does not belong to the African National Congress (ANC), no matter how convinced it has become that this country is its own personal fiefdom. The ANC itself does not get to decide who deserves citizenship and the rights attached.

Yet this is precisely what is being suggested by Supra Mahumapelo, chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation, who has proposed legislation that could strip South Africans of their citizenship for allegedly spreading misinformation about the country abroad.

Mahumapelo specifically targeted AfriForum, Solidarity, Lex Libertas and the Freedom Front Plus, accusing them of undermining South Africa’s relationship with the United States through their international lobbying. He even suggested that their engagements with American politicians could constitute treason.

Minister of International Relations Ronald Lamola supported investigating measures against those allegedly spreading misinformation internationally, although he did not explicitly endorse citizenship deprivation. Nonetheless, his willingness to entertain punitive measures against political critics is concerning.

Apparently, criticising the ANC government and seeking international support for political change is now being treated as a potential betrayal of South Africa.

But since when did loyalty to the ANC become a requirement for citizenship?

Citizenship is a right, not a privilege

The South African Constitution is abundantly clear on the matter. Section 20 states:

“No citizen may be deprived of citizenship.”

This is reinforced by Section 16, which protects freedom of expression, and Section 19, which guarantees citizens the right to make political choices and campaign for political causes.

These protections are not merely technical legalities. They exist because citizenship is fundamental to the relationship between an individual and their country.

In a liberal democracy, citizens are not subjects who exist at the pleasure of their rulers. Government derives its authority from the people, not the other way round. Politicians are entrusted with administering the state, but that does not grant them ownership over the country or its citizens.

Citizenship is not a membership card that can be confiscated when someone disagrees with the leadership. It is a legal and political status that recognises an individual’s place within a political community, with rights and protections that government is obligated to respect.

This distinction is essential. A citizen must be free to criticise their government, oppose its policies and campaign for its removal from office. Without these freedoms, citizenship becomes little more than a conditional privilege granted in exchange for obedience.

The Constitutional Court reinforced the importance of this protection in May 2025, when it struck down a provision that automatically removed South African citizenship from people who acquired another nationality without prior permission. The Court found that this unjustifiably infringed the constitutional right to citizenship.

While existing citizenship law contains certain provisions for deprivation in specific circumstances, lawful political disagreement is not a legitimate reason to arbitrarily exclude people from their own country.

The ANC may dislike what AfriForum, Lex Libertas or the Freedom Front Plus have to say. It may dispute their claims or consider their international lobbying harmful. But disagreement does not constitute treason, and criticism of the government does not constitute a renunciation of citizenship.

South Africans do not cease to be South African simply because they embarrass the ANC.

The ANC’s convenient memory loss

What makes these proposals particularly remarkable is that the ANC itself built much of its international influence through precisely the sort of foreign lobbying that its politicians now condemn.

During the struggle against apartheid, the ANC regularly appealed to foreign governments, international organisations and political movements to pressure the South African government.

It actively campaigned for sanctions and international isolation, arguing that foreign intervention was necessary to force political change.

On 26 June 1990, Nelson Mandela addressed a joint session of the United States Congress, explicitly calling for American sanctions against South Africa to remain in place until apartheid had been dismantled.

Mandela also met President George H.W. Bush and requested continued American pressure against the South African government.

The ANC was not merely criticising the government to foreigners. It was actively encouraging foreign powers to take measures that would impose economic and diplomatic costs on South Africa.

Yet today, ANC politicians suggest that organisations appealing to the same foreign government could be committing treason.

Of course, the struggle against apartheid and contemporary political disputes are not morally or historically identical. But that is not the point. The issue is whether South Africans possess the right to seek international support for their political causes, regardless of whether the government approves of those causes.

If the ANC believed that appealing to foreign governments was legitimate when it was fighting apartheid, it needs to explain why that principle should no longer apply to its contemporary critics.

The crimes of the apartheid government cannot be used to justify the ANC adopting comparable abuses of state power. The purpose of South Africa’s democratic transition was not merely to replace one ruling party with another, but to establish a constitutional order that protected individual rights against whoever happened to wield political authority.

The ANC’s historical contribution to that transition does not place it above the principles it helped establish.

South Africa is bigger than the ANC

The government’s justification for these proposed measures is that organisations are spreading misinformation internationally. But if these organisations are genuinely making false claims, the appropriate response is to identify those claims, present evidence and correct the record.

Freedom of expression does not protect every unlawful act, and demonstrable falsehoods can have consequences under applicable law. But the government cannot simply declare an opposing political narrative to be misinformation and thereby justify threatening fundamental rights.

More importantly, the interests of South Africa are not necessarily the interests of the ANC. A policy that benefits the governing party may harm the country, while criticism that embarrasses the government may ultimately serve the interests of South Africans.

Patriotism does not require obedience to politicians. It certainly does not require silence when citizens believe their government is acting against their interests.

The ANC is entitled to defend its policies and criticise its opponents. It is not entitled to decide that those opponents no longer deserve to belong to South Africa.

South Africa belongs to its citizens, not the ANC. And no political party should ever be allowed to forget that.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity. You can follow him on X: @NWoodeSmith.

Written By: Thando Nzimande

There is a particular kind of silence that follows a resignation delivered by lawyers. It carries no farewell speech, no handover and no pretence of a graceful exit. When Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya’s legal team informed the South African Police Service (SAPS) that he was resigning on 12 October, the disciplinary hearing against him ended almost as soon as it had begun. For a man who once occupied one of the country’s most senior crime-fighting positions, as deputy national commissioner for crime detection, it was an inglorious departure.

SAPS confirmed that Sibiya’s employment had been terminated with immediate effect. Because disciplinary proceedings were already underway, the service classified his departure as a dishonourable discharge.

The expedited disciplinary process concerned seven counts of alleged serious misconduct arising from evidence presented to the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. Among the allegations were that Sibiya received R800,000 and 20 impalas from businessman Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, improperly shared confidential information and interfered with police investigations. Sibiya has denied wrongdoing.

His resignation prevented the hearing from reaching a formal finding on those allegations. It was not an admission of guilt, but neither did it resolve the questions raised by the commission.

Sibiya is also not the first senior officer to leave the police service amid the commission’s revelations. Former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major-General Lesetja Senona resigned in June, while Brigadier Rachel Matjeng was dismissed following an internal disciplinary process linked to her dealings with Matlala.

These departures suggest that the commission’s work is having institutional consequences, even before the courts have completed their examination of the allegations.

The Madlanga Commission and the Matlala connection

Sibiya’s relationship with Matlala has become one of the most significant threads running through the inquiry.

During his February testimony, Sibiya acknowledged knowing Matlala and meeting him several times. He maintained that their relationship was professional rather than personal, insisting that acquaintance did not constitute friendship.

Sibiya testified that their first meeting occurred at his office in early 2024 and involved matters relating to police facilities and Matlala’s business dealings with SAPS. However, questions arose about inconsistencies in his account, including the date of their first meeting and the fact that Matlala’s multimillion-rand police health-services contract had not yet been awarded.

His explanation for the attempted disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team also came under sustained scrutiny.

Sibiya maintained that he had acted on instructions from then national police commissioner Fannie Masemola. Yet, when questioned on 19 February, he conceded that the documents he relied upon did not expressly order the task team’s disbandment.

That concession did not establish criminal wrongdoing, but it exposed a serious weakness in his explanation for a consequential policing decision.

The commission’s interim findings have added institutional weight to these concerns.

Its first interim report, delivered to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 17 December 2025, identified prima facie evidence warranting urgent investigation into several officials. A special police investigations task team was subsequently established.

The second interim report, submitted on 29 May 2026, largely confirmed the earlier recommendations after implicated individuals had been given opportunities to testify.

In an official statement issued on 6 August, the Presidency confirmed that the commission had recommended disciplinary proceedings and immediate criminal investigations concerning Sibiya, suspended Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, Brown Mogotsi and a protected witness identified as Witness G.

Criminal proceedings were recommended where investigators established sufficient evidence.

The distinction is important. A commission of inquiry can expose apparent misconduct, recommend investigations and refer matters to law enforcement. It does not determine criminal guilt. That responsibility remains with the courts.

The arrest and the criminal charges

Separate from the commission’s corruption allegations, Sibiya now faces serious criminal charges.

On 21 September 2026, members of the Commission’s Recommendations Task Team arrested the 59-year-old at a venue in Sandton. He appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court the following day.

He initially faced five charges: three counts of sexual grooming, one of human trafficking and one of rape. A further charge concerning the negligent handling of a firearm was subsequently added, bringing the reported total to six.

The prosecution alleges that Sibiya raped an 18-year-old woman at a Sandton hotel in May 2026 after she had consumed alcohol and lost consciousness.

In a separate set of allegations, prosecutors contend that he sexually groomed a 16-year-old girl through WhatsApp communications between July and August, including requests for sexually explicit material.

Sibiya denies the charges. He maintains that his sexual encounter with the 18-year-old was consensual and disputes the allegations involving the minor. He has indicated that he intends to plead not guilty.

The allegations have not been proved at trial.

Although the criminal case is separate from the commission’s investigation, the bail proceedings have introduced another dimension to the controversy: recordings that prosecutors say raise concerns about possible interference with witnesses.

The recordings and their implications

One recording played during the bail application allegedly captures Sibiya confronting a man identified as Mr M, the father of the 16-year-old complainant and a former associate of the general.

In the recording, Sibiya tells Mr M that he could deal with him quickly and easily.

The prosecution interprets those remarks as an indication of intimidation. Mr M has also alleged in an affidavit that Sibiya threatened him and his family after he sought to pursue a criminal complaint.

The defence disputes that interpretation, arguing that the remarks have been taken out of context and arose from a personal disagreement rather than an attempt to obstruct justice.

Another recording involved Bishop Azwihangwi Maumela, an associate of Sibiya, discussing the possibility of locating and speaking to the 18-year-old complainant. Prosecutors have characterised the conversation as evidence of possible interference. Sibiya’s family maintains that Maumela acted independently and was not instructed to contact witnesses on its behalf.

The most far-reaching recording emerged on 13 October, when the state played approximately 25 minutes of a telephone conversation between businessman Serge Cabonge and Mr M.

The conversation ventured well beyond the sexual offence allegations.

Cabonge discussed alleged dealings involving Sibiya, Matlala and suspended Sergeant Fannie Nkosi. He claimed that Sibiya and Matlala conducted business through Nkosi while denying that he personally collected money from Matlala to pass to Sibiya.

Reports differed in their characterisation of the recording, with some emphasising alleged payments to Sibiya and others highlighting Cabonge’s denial of acting as a financial intermediary.

The recording also contained claims that Cabonge had used police connections to assist the family of a person allegedly associated with the Madlanga Commission in securing the withdrawal of a criminal case following a vehicle collision.

None of these claims has been independently established.

The allegations nevertheless attracted the commission’s attention. On 13 October, commission spokesperson Jeremy Michaels confirmed that investigators intended to obtain a statement from Cabonge and examine matters falling within the inquiry’s terms of reference.

The defence questioned the relevance of the Cabonge recording to Sibiya’s bail application, particularly because Sibiya was not a participant in the conversation. His lawyers argued that the recording required proper context and should not be treated as proof of allegations made by third parties.

That objection highlights a central difficulty with the material.

A recorded conversation may establish that particular statements were made, but it does not necessarily establish that those statements were truthful. Claims made outside a courtroom require investigation and, where necessary, testing through formal evidence.

What the recordings could mean for bail

The immediate significance of the recordings lies in the bail proceedings rather than any determination of guilt.

The prosecution has argued that the charges fall under Schedule 6 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which imposes a demanding threshold for release. An accused facing a Schedule 6 offence must establish exceptional circumstances that, in the interests of justice, justify bail.

Sibiya’s legal team has challenged the application of the Schedule 6 provisions, while maintaining that he should qualify for release even if the stricter test applies.

South African bail law also requires courts to consider whether an accused person might intimidate witnesses, interfere with evidence or otherwise undermine the administration of justice.

The recording involving Mr M is therefore particularly relevant to the prosecution’s argument. If the court accepts that Sibiya’s remarks amounted to intimidation, they could weigh against his release.

The Cabonge recording raises different questions. Much of its content concerns alleged financial dealings and relationships beyond the sexual offence case. Its relevance to the immediate bail decision is therefore less direct.

On 14 October, the court heard affidavits from both complainants expressing fears for their safety should Sibiya be released.

The defence rejected the suggestion that those fears alone justified continued detention. It offered R20,000 bail, proposed conditions restricting contact with witnesses and argued that Sibiya was neither a flight risk nor a threat to the investigation. His lawyers also raised concerns about his health, finances and ability to prepare for trial while in custody.

By 15 October, the prosecution was presenting its final arguments against bail, maintaining that the evidence supported its concerns about possible witness interference.

Whatever the magistrate ultimately decides, a bail ruling will not establish whether Sibiya committed the offences.

Refusing bail would mean that he remains in custody while the case proceeds. Granting bail would mean that the court considers his release compatible with the interests of justice, subject to any conditions imposed.

Neither outcome would constitute a verdict.

Accountability must survive the headlines

There is a larger story here, one that extends far beyond Sibiya’s personal circumstances.

South Africans have watched numerous commissions expose corruption, misconduct and institutional failures. Too often, gripping testimony and substantial reports have been followed by disappointing prosecutorial results.

The Madlanga Commission is being measured against that experience.

Already, its proceedings have contributed to disciplinary action, dismissals, resignations and criminal investigations. These are meaningful developments, but they are not substitutes for successful prosecutions where criminal wrongdoing can be proved.

The challenge is to translate the commission’s revelations into legally sustainable accountability.

Fairness also demands that Sibiya’s position remains part of the public record.

He denies having an improper relationship with Matlala, disputes allegations concerning surveillance equipment and maintains that his actions regarding the Political Killings Task Team followed legitimate instructions. He rejects the sexual offence allegations and has accused investigators of abusing their powers.

Those denials deserve examination through the appropriate legal processes, just as the allegations against him deserve thorough investigation.

A recommendation is not a conviction. An arrest is not a verdict. A democracy that insists on due process for the powerful must continue to insist upon it when those individuals have fallen from power.

There are now two major processes to watch.

The first is the criminal case and the court’s determination of Sibiya’s bail application. The second is the Madlanga Commission’s final report, scheduled for submission to President Ramaphosa on 16 November 2026.

The outcome of one will not automatically determine the other.

For Shadrack Sibiya, the resignation letter may have ended his career in the police service, but it did not close the investigations surrounding him.

For South Africa, the more important question is whether the institutions responsible for investigating and prosecuting wrongdoing can establish the truth, uphold due process and deliver justice.

That, rather than the resignation itself, will be the real test of accountability.

Thando Nzimande is a University of the Witwatersrand alumnus, Future Voices scholar and researcher at the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI). His interests span neuroscience, economics and geopolitical analysis. He aims to bring scientific reasoning, critical thinking and rigorous research to public debate and the analysis of global affairs.

Written By: Matsheole Majoro

South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her lifelong commitment to international law and human rights. The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognised her contribution to expanding the scope and influence of international law, particularly in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted. She becomes the fifth South African to receive the honour, joining Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, F. W. de Klerk and Desmond Tutu.

Pillay’s career began in Durban, where she defended anti-apartheid activists and fought for the rights of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela. She became the first non-white woman to serve on South Africa’s High Court before serving as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court (ICC). She was also the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014 and currently serves as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the genocide case against Myanmar. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated the importance of holding those in power accountable to the law.

The award has sparked fierce criticism from Israel because Pillay chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry that concluded in 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel rejected the findings and condemned the Nobel Committee’s decision. The United States also announced sweeping sanctions against the ICC on the day of the Nobel announcement, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio declaring that the administration intended to cut off the court’s resources and cripple its ability to operate.

These developments demonstrate why the Nobel Committee’s message matters. The committee warned that judges and institutions of international law are increasingly facing political attacks, while powerful governments are turning towards coercion rather than legal processes to resolve disputes. The sanctions against the ICC illustrate the danger of treating international legal institutions as obstacles to be dismantled whenever their decisions or investigations become politically inconvenient.

The rule of law is one of the foundations of a free society. When governments can undermine independent courts, intimidate judges or disregard legal obligations without consequence, individual rights become increasingly insecure. The same principle that demands equality before the law within a country must also inform our expectations of governments internationally. Political power should never place anyone beyond legal accountability.

Pillay understands this responsibility. Following the announcement of her award, she called for a renewed commitment to defending independent courts and an international legal order based on principle rather than selectivity. She dedicated the prize to survivors of international crimes and reminded world leaders of their obligations to protect human rights and pursue peaceful solutions to conflict.

Importantly, the Nobel Committee’s decision celebrates a career rather than endorsing every finding made by Pillay or every institution with which she has been associated. The committee clarified that it was not determining whether Israel had committed genocide, a legal question for the ICJ to resolve. A commission of inquiry is not a court, and its conclusions should not be confused with a binding judicial judgment.

This distinction is essential. Defending the rule of law does not require unquestioning loyalty to international bureaucracies, nor does it mean that courts and judges are beyond criticism. International institutions must themselves respect due process, impartiality, jurisdictional limits and legal accountability. Their legitimacy depends on consistently applying legal principles rather than advancing the political preferences of particular governments or organisations.

The principle is threatened from different directions across the political spectrum. Some on the right dismiss international law as an unacceptable constraint on national sovereignty, while some on the left treat it as an instrument for advancing favoured political causes. Both approaches risk weakening its legitimacy. The law must be impartial, predictable and applied equally, regardless of the political identity of those involved.

This matters particularly to those who believe in individual liberty, voluntary exchange and peaceful cooperation. Economic freedom depends on predictable rules, enforceable contracts and independent courts capable of resolving disputes fairly. Without confidence in the legal system, individuals and businesses become vulnerable to arbitrary decisions and abuses of political power. International legal frameworks similarly support cooperation between states by establishing shared expectations and peaceful mechanisms for resolving disputes.

Pillay’s career illustrates the importance of individual courage when institutions face political pressure. She did not wait for governments to approve of her efforts to defend human rights, nor did she abandon her principles because her work became controversial. Her example demonstrates that the protection of individual rights ultimately depends on people willing to defend legal principles even when doing so is unpopular.

The Nobel Committee has delivered a clear message to governments seeking to intimidate international courts: political power must not prevail over the rule of law. Criticism of judicial decisions and legitimate disagreements over jurisdiction are necessary parts of legal discourse, but attempts to undermine the independence or functioning of courts threaten the very institutions through which disputes can be resolved peacefully.

South Africans should be proud of Navi Pillay. Her career began in the struggle against apartheid, a system that used legislation to institutionalise discrimination and deny millions of people equal rights before the law. Her subsequent work has sought to strengthen legal protections against abuses of power internationally.

Her Nobel Peace Prize is therefore more than recognition of an accomplished South African jurist. It is a reminder that the rule of law exists to protect individuals from arbitrary power, whether exercised by governments, political leaders or international institutions. That is a legacy worth honouring, and a principle that every free society must continue to defend.

Matsheole Majoro is a final-year student and an associate of the Free Market Foundation.

ANC leaders are proposing to strip South Africans of their citizenship for criticising the government abroad. Could speaking out against the ANC, or lobbying the United States, really amount to treason?

ANC MP Supra Mahumapelo has proposed legislation targeting South Africans accused of spreading misinformation internationally, singling out organisations including AfriForum, Solidarity, Lex Libertas and the Freedom Front Plus. International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola has backed calls to investigate measures against alleged misinformation, raising serious questions about freedom of speech, citizenship rights and South Africa’s constitutional democracy.

In this episode of the Rational Standard Podcast, host Nicholas Woode-Smith is joined by Zakhele Mthembu and Ayanda Zulu to unpack the controversy, examine the ANC’s relationship with constitutional rights, and debate whether criticism of the government can ever justify accusations of treason.

In this episode:

• What exactly have Supra Mahumapelo and Ronald Lamola proposed?

• Can the South African government legally revoke citizenship over political disagreement?

• Does lobbying the United States against ANC policies constitute treason?

• Why is the ANC condemning foreign lobbying when it relied on international pressure and sanctions during apartheid?

• Where is the line between misinformation, legitimate political criticism and freedom of expression?

• Does South African sovereignty belong to its citizens or to the politicians governing them?

The ANC once appealed to foreign governments to challenge apartheid. Now, some of its leaders want legal action against South Africans doing something similar. What does this mean for freedom of speech, political opposition and the rule of law?

Everyone is talking and writing about Lex Libertas’s White Cross project these days. More so in South Africa than in America, which is a pity, but still understandable. In America it was merely another peripheral event in a news environment dominated by much larger issues.

High fuel prices are on everyone’s lips in America, as are the issues of America-Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, both of which naturally have a direct impact on fuel prices. Then there are also the approaching midterm elections and ongoing speculation about how the above issues will play into them.

It does, however, look like six of one and half a dozen of the other, as is usually the case with American politics. The Democrats take “pleasure” from the crises I mentioned because they believe it will make voters vote for them. The Republicans, on the other hand, apparently sit on a pile of money that is being used in their election campaign and will be used further to win voters over to their side.

But the above was just by way of introduction, because I want to write about another issue in South Africa that, like the White Cross project and American politics, also portrays two divergent convictions.

Just as pro-White Crossers stand opposite White Cross condemners, and just as Democrats stand opposite Republicans in America, so our South African business sector stands in two camps opposite each other.

There is the cooperative or appeasement approach towards the ANC-in-government, which stands opposite the direct-confrontation approach. The latter often follows after the former has been tried, but without results.

Yet there are noticeably some in the business sector who simply stick to the cooperative or appeasement approach. They convince themselves that it does bear fruit, even though very few such fruits are to be seen after 32 years of appeasing the ANC-in-government.

Our stumbling economy testifies to that.

Despite decades of high-level business summits, working groups and “CEO initiatives” under the leadership of well-known business personalities, macroeconomic bottlenecks such as labour rigidity, monopolies of state-owned enterprises, port and rail decay, and ongoing regulatory uncertainty have remained entrenched or have worsened over time.

Reference is made to a few “green shoots”, which are not disputable, but are also far from being grounds for conviction.

Private power generation has indeed been directly facilitated, such as through the removal of the 100 MW licence ceiling and the facilitation of private grid access, which has played a decisive role in stabilising electricity supply.

The continued existence of the Eskom monopoly remains, however, a source of great concern.

With a R30 billion surplus and highly questionable “Chinese” accounting methods, we are expected to forget about the massive historical debt burden that taxpayers had to absorb, which was basically written off by Treasury, as well as the continued above-inflation increases in electricity tariffs that are passed on to power consumers without alternatives.

What is the R30 billion surplus going to be used for? Debt repayment is no longer necessary. How much of it is going to be channelled again to cadres and their buddies?

We know by now how much creative thinking and planning is applied for that, from cadre employment to the awarding of tenders to cadres and their buddies at inflated prices, and everything in between in which the cadres, who are already planted in the enterprise, are masters.

Mention is also made of joint government-business sector task teams that have been brought directly into Transnet’s corridor management to restore rail lines and improve port efficiency.

There are signs of improvement, but the jury is still out on the matter.

Breaking down and destruction is quick, but building up takes long. More than 30 years of lack of maintenance, incompetent management and incapable executive staff cause enormous damage, as has indeed happened across South Africa.

But let us now be honest: business leaders who maintain continuous, public optimism and preach cooperation have often simply become a shield behind which the government hides in order to feign the appearance of cooperation with the business sector.

This has merely allowed the ANC-in-government to claim that it works hand in hand with business, while fundamental ideological reforms have been postponed and never truly considered because of the underlying socialist ideology to which the ANC is married.

The few “green shoots” referred to were merely the result of total desperation. The ANC-in-government simply had no shorter-term options, but I can give readers a letter that it made not one jot of difference to the ANC’s ideological views.

In the good old Marxist tradition, it is merely regarded as a temporary retreat, which will again be converted into a return to the socialist approach when the time is ripe.

Thus simply exploitation of business’s softness and good intentions.

The limits of cooperation

Here are the facts.

During periods in which business adopted a cooperative attitude towards the ANC-in-government, policies such as Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE), the National Health Insurance (NHI) and expropriation discussions continued without any meaningful shift towards free-market principles.

Despite the broader private health sector having offered comprehensive technical cooperation and compromise models to achieve universal health coverage, the government basically approved the NHI Bill in 2024 unchanged.

This proves that “appeasement talks” and “cooperation” failed to change the socialist ideology on important policy fronts.

When confrontation works

Let us next look at the other, opposite approach: direct confrontation.

Anglo American and Kumba aggressively opposed the Department of Mineral Resources over the Sishen rights.

It concerned a 21.4% undivided share in the mining rights of Africa’s largest iron-ore mine, the Sishen mine in the Northern Cape.

At the beginning of the century, when the South African state’s iron and steel producer, Iscor, was unbundled, it was divided into Kumba Resources, responsible for mining, and Iscor Steel, which later became ArcelorMittal South Africa.

Under the old dispensation, ArcelorMittal retained a 21.4% share in the mining right at Sishen. According to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA), all old-order mining rights had to be converted to new-order rights by 30 April 2009.

While Kumba successfully converted its 78.6% controlling share, ArcelorMittal failed to apply timeously for its 21.4% share, whereby that portion of the right lapsed.

What the ANC-in-government then did was, instead of awarding the lapsed 21.4% share to Kumba, which already owned the remaining 78.6% and operated the entire physical mine, to have the Department of Mineral Resources silently award prospecting rights over that 21.4% share to a politically connected, unknown BEE company called Imperial Crown Trading 289 (ICT).

ICT’s shareholders included prominent figures with close ties to the ruling elite, such as Jagdish Gupta, Duduzane Zuma and the former deputy minister Prudence Zako.

ICT paid nominally little for prospecting rights over an active, operational iron-ore quarry worth billions of rands.

Chris Griffith and the boards of Kumba and Anglo American, however, refused to yield to political pressure to sign a settlement.

They realised that if they were to accept it, it would create a dangerous precedent that would threaten property rights and the legal system across the entire mining sector.

They consequently launched a high-profile, unyielding court battle against both the Department of Mineral Resources and ICT.

They argued that the DMR’s award was illegal, procedurally flawed and fraudulent, and pointed out that ICT’s application apparently copied data directly from Kumba’s confidential files.

The outcome was that the mining executives’ firm stance led to a total legal victory.

The North Gauteng High Court declared ICT’s prospecting right null and void and illegal.

The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s judgment and found that the department’s decision was illegal and invalid.

The Constitutional Court finally ruled that once ArcelorMittal’s 21.4% right had lapsed, Kumba had become the sole holder of the mining right over the Sishen mine. The court permanently set aside the award to ICT.

The case remains a well-known watershed moment in South African corporate history.

It demonstrated the business sector’s willingness to use the judiciary to defend assets against irregular state-driven awards.

Many “smaller” battles have also already been won by civil organisations such as OUTA, Solidariteit, AfriForum and Sakeliga that have produced enforceable results where dialogue achieved little.

They have also, in some cases, taken the government to court over corruption and regulatory overreach.

Thus direct, straightforward and public confrontation has often delivered concrete results.

Concluding thoughts

Given the nature of our politics, it does not appear that we as a country will soon, if ever, be characterised at national level by business-friendly and free-market government approaches.

Rather, political consolidation at national level will yield more of the same as under the ANC-in-government as described above. Or perhaps much worse under a merger of radical ANC thinkers with the MKP and the EFF, which could result in nationalisation on a large scale.

I therefore foresee the increasing necessity of the direct-confrontation approach.

In my view, it will yield better results for as long as we are still a constitutional democracy.

The cooperative or appeasement approach simply does not work, or works very rarely, as I have pointed out.

It is pure window-dressing to pretend that the ANC-in-government believes that the private-sector approach is better.

In certain cases, intervention by the private sector is allowed by the government over the shorter term purely because the crisis cannot be handled by the state.

But it is regarded through the ideological lenses of radicals merely as temporary setbacks.

It does not change the unwavering belief in the socialist ideology with the state as the master over everyone and everything.

Piet du Plessis is a retiree with a long history of applied socio-economic development. A liberated Afrikaner who has moved beyond self-flagellation, he believes that he has been freed to live out his cultural pride and values, and to proclaim them openly when appropriate.

Written By Dr. Oluwaseun Adeoye Oyebamiji

The sage George Ayittey spent much of his career warning about Africa’s “Hippos”, the entrenched elites who get fat on state patronage and monopoly, versus the “Cheetahs”, the young entrepreneurs who just want government out of their way so they can build something.

The news that Dangote Petroleum Refinery is preparing to halt PMS sales to Matrix, A.A. Rano and the other five licensed importers is a good moment to ask which one Nigeria’s most celebrated refinery is becoming.

The refinery’s complaint has some substance. Imported petrol made up about 43 per cent of supply in July, despite a $19 billion plant built in Lagos specifically to end Nigeria’s habit of exporting crude and importing the fuel refined from it elsewhere.

Dangote is worried that imported cargoes of inconsistent quality could get blended with its own product before reaching consumers, making it hard to trace bad fuel back to its source. It also says the regulator, NMDPRA, does not have the lab capacity to independently verify that imported fuel meets specification.

Those are real concerns.

But the question a free-market view has to ask is why one private company gets to decide, on its own, who else is allowed to sell petrol to Nigerians.

Nigeria never really built a competitive fuel market. It replaced the old NNPC import-and-subsidy system with a structure where a single private refiner is now large enough to set terms for the entire downstream sector.

The six licensed importers exist because NMDPRA tried to preserve some supply diversity and price discipline by keeping the door open to foreign cargoes. Dangote’s response is not to win on price and quality. It is to use its market weight to close that door.

If the refinery truly had a cost advantage, it could undercut the importers on price and let consumers walk away from them on their own.

Cutting off supply instead of competing on price is a tell.

Ayittey was clear that a monopoly is a monopoly whether it is run by the state or by a billionaire. A market with one dominant seller that can cut off supply to smaller rivals does not become free just because government did not order the cutoff.

If Dangote can simply refuse to sell wholesale product to the licensed marketers, those marketers become fully dependent on foreign cargoes at higher landed cost, and that cost gets passed straight to pump prices for ordinary Nigerians who have no say in this dispute.

Dangote does deserve one piece of credit that should not get lost in this argument. Nobody else was willing to put $19 billion into Nigerian refining after decades of a state sector that ran the business into the ground.

Taking on that risk, and expecting the rules not to shift under him once the plant was built, is not an unreasonable position. A country that wants private capital to fix its infrastructure problems has to honour the terms investors built under, or it will struggle to attract the next $19 billion from anyone.

The two things can both be true.

Dangote earned a stable set of rules to operate under. He did not earn the right to write those rules himself by cutting off rivals whenever he judges the mix of supply to be inconvenient.

The actual fix has to come from government, not from either side unilaterally deciding what is fair.

NMDPRA should set a clear tariff on imported PMS, low enough to keep supply diverse but high enough to reflect that Dangote carried the capital risk domestic refining required. At the same time, Dangote should be required to sell wholesale product to all licensed marketers at a transparent, published ex-depot price, the same price for everyone, so nobody can quietly starve out a competitor.

Combine that with faster licensing for new refiners and a properly funded quality lab at NMDPRA, and the market gets both fair treatment for the operator who took the risk and real protection for consumers.

The broader pattern here is one Nigeria has lived through before.

State monopoly gives way to private monopoly, and the public is told each time that this new arrangement is the fix.

The real problem was never who owned the monopoly. It was the absence of open, rules-based competition.

Nigerians spent decades demanding an end to fuel queues caused by a broken state system. They should not have to settle for queuing behind one billionaire’s terms instead, whether he built the plant with his own risk capital or not.

Dr. Oluwaseun Adeoye Oyebamiji is a development economist and agricultural policy researcher whose work examines food security, poverty, markets, agricultural policy and economic development, particularly in Africa. His research combines empirical evidence with policy analysis to examine contemporary economic and development issues.