EXPROPRIATION
LUMKILE MONDI: Land grabs are no substitute for strong policy
The GDP growth rate of 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2017 signifies the importance of economic and political certainty. Compared with a robust global economic recovery and GDP growth rate of 3.9%, SA had lagged behind due to economic and political uncertainty as finance ministers and mining laws were changed with abandon. However, by the end of the third quarter domestic and international investors understood that the Jacob Zuma presidency was coming to an end in December at the 54th ANC elective conference. Moreover, Zuma’s radical economic transformation project was being exposed as a recipe for self-enrichment through the looting of state-owned enterprises by his son Duduzane and the Gupta family. Many of these were already in financial distress as lenders refused to lend or attached stringent conditions to loans.The only political uncertainty was who would be victorious at the elective conference. For investors, what mattered was not who was going to win, but that there would be...
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