NEWS ANALYSIS: Zuma’s mallet has smashed an economy
The ANC’s glib approach to democracy has seen the economy founder in pursuit of disparate national agendas, writes Mark Allix
Business confidence and employment have fallen to their worst levels in years. As observers are now saying, this can be put down to one thing: President Jacob Zuma’s government. Amid state capture, even upstanding members of the Cabinet have been deeply compromised — if not corrupted. The ANC’s glib approach to democracy has seen the economy founder in pursuit of disparate national agendas. These include visions of a developmental state and black economic empowerment — split between adherents of the National Development Plan and the far more state-interventionist New Growth Path. As these contradictions have morphed into radical economic transformation, populism and personal gain have sunk economic and legislative integrity. Allied to the notion of a developmental state, SA’s governing party has assumed that it can create markets by fiat. But the only tool it has in the toolbox is a bludgeoning instrument that bears down on the finest screw and smallest nut with the same force it wo...
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