Transparent governance is key to our survival
Ratings agencies are part of a global village in which good business practice is crucial to get rid of junk status
Shocking events and states of affairs flash on television screens and on social media daily. We can run from them, but we cannot hide. The best example is the downgrading of SA to junk status by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch. It has to be dealt with on the basis of presenting reality and not on an imaginary world of conspiracies. It has been difficult to understand the high levels of misunderstanding and the conspiracy theories about ratings agencies that abound. I may be critical of the things they do, but conspiracy theories are not helpful. South Africans may not like them or be interested in them, but they have an interest in SA. The institutions, agencies and actors that shape the structures of the global political economy take them very seriously. Never mind the dangerous pull-back into the politics of identity and ethnic nationalism, events in one part of the world are relayed to other parts through contagion mechanisms such as investment, trade or capital flows. A defining fe...
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