Another year, another IMF report extolling SA’s “historic opportunity” to turn things around. But turning, and turning, in the widening gyre of annual IMF Article IV assessments, one can’t help but feel the falcon has long lost the falconer.

It’s a familiar script, brimming with bureaucratic optimism and laced with diplomatic niceties. We are told the government of national unity (GNU) has a fresh mandate to tackle long-standing economic woes. Growth forecasts creep up in decimal points, inflation is subdued, and there’s not a power outage in sight. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit, actually. ..

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