From courtrooms to cabinet, SA’s governance keeps defaulting to improvisation, delay and costly shortcuts.
The Madlanga commission keeps ripping open seams, and it’s not an isolated rot. It runs into law, land and labour. If you’re looking for institutional logic, you’ll find only improvisation, cosmetic fixes and well-dressed panic.
Police fog at the top
Fannie Masemola’s testimony at the commission turned an already messy story into an even messier one, as Sinesipho Schrieber reports. His testimony that a high-stakes KwaZulu-Natal task team was shut down on someone’s say-so, and the president’s claimed surprise, reads like a trick that converts the chain of command into a fog.
Land reform stuck in the past
That same improvisation energy explains why the Expropriation Act sits idle while the 1975 law presides over a potentially precedent-setting Driefontein fight, as Nompilo Goba reports. It’s a bureaucratic time-warp that hands a modern dispute to an antique rule book. That matters.
The new law flips compensation norms towards what is “just and equitable”, including the possibility of nil awards, while the old law favours market valuation and precedent that advantaged owners. So, a 34ha Gauteng parcel, seized in 2019 and valued between R30m and R64m, now fights its fate in yesterday’s legal language. The practical effect is predictably greater uncertainty for developers and louder warnings from business.
Equity rules in legal limbo
Not coincidentally, as Tara Roos reports, Business Unity SA has litigated over rushed sector employment equity targets, citing an opaque methodology and a lack of consultation. When policy design migrates to briefings and back rooms, lawyers become the new policy drafters. The practical fallout is that large employers face a compliance limbo while judges sort technicalities. That limbo costs time and money, and it’s avoidable.
Chrome and the cost of procrastination
The same policy-by-postponement ethos defines the chrome industry, as Kabelo Khumalo reports, who detailed how two realities sit side by side. The industry belts out a R7.5bn loss figure, and ministers nod at cabinet approval that never translates into Gazette notices. Illegal chrome is a textbook failure of enforcement meeting policy procrastination. The cost is jobs and downstream capacity, and the winners are whoever can move ore.
Tourism versus trophy hunting
Don Ross and Ross Harvey brought their academic and research heft as guest essay writers this week. Their argument is simple, damning and lands like a conservationist invoice. A rushed tender, a suspect overpopulation narrative and missed non-lethal options amount to a rent-seeking play that risks wrecking our photographic-tourism jewel.
Photographic tourism earns the North West real money while trophy hunting delivers crumbs and reputational damage. If Madikwe is sacrificed for expediency, the bill will come due in fewer tourist numbers.
Business steps in, but at what cost?
Business said what business always says when institutions wobble. Disappointment, offered help and a threat to sue if processes get theatrical, as Hilary Joffe reports. B4SA’s offer to add Johannesburg as a focused area for support is less charity and more damage control. Expect targeted interventions to prop up brittle systems.
That’s useful, but it’s also the point that public expertise can paper over administrative rot, not replace accountable public management. If Johannesburg improves because corporate teams grit their teeth and do the heavy lifting, celebrate the immediate wins and worry about the precedent being set.
Zille’s risky mayoral gamble
Speaking of Johannesburg, Helen Zille’s mayoral bid, as Thando Maeko reports, is a branding spark in a municipal tinder box. High profile, high controversy and high fragility. Tom Eaton’s column calls the optimism around her a form of magical thinking. He’s right. Without an outright majority, the mayor’s office becomes a revolving door of motions and transactional appointments.
The real work of reforming Joburg
Our editorial adds the administrative truth. Winning the chain is only step one; reforming a 40,000-strong, compromised bureaucracy requires legislation, resources and courage. Business might plug the gap, Eaton might needle the rhetoric and Zille might energise voters, sure, but unless coalitions stabilise and municipal law is mended, Johannesburg risks theatre rather than durable governance.
Transnet’s R135bn rescue plea
Transnet’s R135bn pitch to Gulf investors is a rescue plan and a confession rolled into one, as Khumalo reports. Yes, ports and rail need cash, and no, the state doesn’t have a plan to pay for it. Management points to improved losses and big throughput ambitions, critics point to courts, contractors and a R144bn debt pile that doesn’t vanish with a PowerPoint.
Bringing in Gulf investors might work if governance, procurement and legal knots are actually tied before the cheque clears.
Malls go digital with data chess
Noxolo Majavu showcased Business Day’s deep-dive journalism in this mall piece. Landlords using anonymised Wi-fi and fibre to map shopper flows are playing 21st-century tenancy chess: smarter leasing, better footfall economics and curated tenant mix.
The winners are nimble, convenience-led malls and food operators, and the losers are legacy centres that thought anchors alone could carry the rent roll. The rub is privacy and governance.
Revolut shakes up SA banking
Finally, Revolut picking SA as its continental beachhead is bold, as Tiisetso Motsoeneng reports. Incumbents now face a decade of discounting and product pressure. A licence here means full service ambitions from forex, remittances, cards and deposit rails. For consumers, that usually translates into better pricing and slicker apps, and for legacy banks, it reads as margin compression and a frantic sprint to modernise digital rails.
Fixing all that requires timely proclamations and the political, routine work few politicians find photogenic. Until then, SA institutions will remain provisional, its assets at risk and its headlines predictably bad.
Until next week, every story is your business
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