JUSTICE MALALA: Ramaphosa must take responsibility for our currency decline
'His poorly conceived land announcement in the late hours of August 1 was an utter disaster. His continued lack of direction on the issue is even worse'
EXTRACT
Over the week the rand retreated to levels last seen in the horrific Zuma days. On Friday it breached the key R15-to-the-dollar level. That’s a far cry from R12 to the dollar, which is the level it was at in January when hope soared that Cyril Ramaphosa would bring about change and policy certainty in SA.
The consequences of such a horrendously weak rand will be horrific for the poor. One analyst pointed out that the currency’s vertiginous depreciation over the past week may mean a 20c increase in the petrol price. That means virtually everything the poor consume – from transport to food – will increase in price. This on the back of massive fuel price hikes in recent months.
The rand’s weakness is not a fluke or just the result of global political shifts such as what’s happened in Turkey. We are also to blame.
One day I hope to fly around SA giving classes to politicians, even businesspeople, on the very simple theme of cause and effect. My lessons will be very basic, because our politicians don’t seem to understand that there is a direct relationship between what they do and what actually happens in their jurisdictions. The one is the result of the other. This very elementary concept is something that is deeply lacking among our public representatives. This ignorance seems to be getting worse, and that’s saying a lot because in the Zuma years things were pretty bad. I would go to ANC conferences and would get stopped by delegates.“Justice,” they would ask, “why did you make the premier of the Northern Cape the loser of the week on your television show?” Why would anyone ask such a question when the answer is so blindingly obvious? In 2013, this politician used her government credit card to spend more than R50,000 on fast food during her first 10 weeks in office. Why couldn’t anyone see t...
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