PETER BRUCE: SA’s biggest industrial flaw: the Patel availability factor
He has managed to sink huge sectors of the economy during his umpteen years as minister
SA under President Cyril Ramaphosa has failed on such a broad spectrum of policy — from electricity and now water, to local government, health, mining, logistics and crime — that it is hard to pick out the most damaging. For me, without question, the most spectacular under-achievements have been in trade, industry and competition.
In an interview a few days ago in the Sunday Times, trade, industry & competition minister Ebrahim Patel, now in his umpteenth year in more or less the same job, was bemoaning the EU’s new carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). The mechanism will tax imports into the EU from manufacturers around the world that produce too much pollution in their production processes. And that includes where they get their electricity from. ..
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