South Africa fiddles while Poland thrives
In this episode, we discuss how South Africa’s government has fiddled with name changes and heritage issues while the country approaches failed state status.
Join Martin Van Staden, Nicholas Woode-Smith and Ayanda Zulu as they dive into some of the most pressing issues of the week.
In this episode, we discuss how South Africa’s government has fiddled with name changes and heritage issues while the country approaches failed state status.
We also explore why countries like Poland are succeeding, and what policy choices have driven their growth and stability.
What separates decline from progress, and what can South Africa do differently?
I led a large business turnaround in Poland from 2002 to a successful investor exit in 2005. Poland was still in recovery mode after decades of communist / socialist rule. The infrastructure was still being repaired and rebuilt, but the dedication and hard work that the Poles are famous for shone through. The Government pursued business-friendly policies, mainly getting out the road of private enterprise. Today 20 years later Poland enjoys high sustainable growth, continues to encourage private investors and still pursues a Poles First policy. Poland is now one of the leading countries in Europe, a safe place to live, worship (over 80% of Poles attend church) and work.
On the other hand South Africa also won their freedom around the same time in the early 90s, but unlike Poland, they inherited a much better economy, a solid infrastructure and a Government that worked. Today, South Africa continues its decline, with flat growth, relatively higher inflation, whilst promoting races policies against people of what they consider the wrong skin colour. The borders are wide open, unemployment rife, it’s the murder capital of the world and it prefers Islamist fanatics as friends compared with American.
Poland is not on the ANCs friends list, pity, the Poles can teach South Africans an awful lot about how to recover from being ruled by a flawed ideology, but they will not listen, until they get voted out - however long that might take….