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KHAYA SITHOLE: Good politics, bad economics in VAT list
If we are to get the relief to the right people, making sanitary products free for the poor makes more sense
One of our society’s greatest flaws is the inability to actively hold politicians to account. In far too many instances, politicians make announcements in times of crises, promise to commission a study or an inquiry, which then predictably misses its own deadlines. Recently, we have seen this from the finance minister, who promised action on the issue of the Public Investment Corp’s governance "in due course", and then promptly went silent on us. No-one complained. The president assembled a team to look into ways of mitigating the effect of fuel price increases on society. Nothing has been heard since. In 2013, the department of basic education finally published its "norms and standards" relating to school infrastructure and set itself a deadline of 2016 for full implementation. Unsurprisingly, it missed the deadline.Bizarrely, when the department was taken to court regarding this delay it lost the court case and then decided to appeal. A week after it announced this intention, Pres...
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