LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Coalition partners should review their own ministers

Political analyst Dirk Kotzé observes that “the driving force of this was very definitely the DA’s internal evaluation process” (Ramaphosa reshuffle driven by DA review, not ANC overhaul, July 5). He is right, but where the surrounding commentary errs is in treating this as a curiosity, something faintly irregular that requires explanation.

In a coalition government, portfolios are allocated to parties, which answer to their voters for the ministers they deploy into them. A partner that reviews its own representatives and recommends replacements is exercising precisely the responsibility that portfolio allocation assigns it. The president retained the final appointment decision, and he took it. Nothing in that sequence diminishes executive authority. It is the division of labour that coalition arrangements create.

South Africans are accustomed to reading cabinet changes through a single-party lens, in which the president initiates and his party absorbs. That benchmark no longer applies. In multiparty executives abroad, partners routinely rotate their own ministers without the head of government being weakened by it. The practice keeps each party accountable for the portfolios it holds. Measuring the GNU against the habits of single-party rule will keep producing false alarms.

That a DA-initiated reshuffle strikes observers as novel says something about how young national coalition politics is in South Africa, not about whether the practice is sound. What matters for the GNU’s durability is whether the partners respect the allocation of authority they agreed to. This round, they did.

Ofentse Donald Davhie

Centre for Risk Analysis

Don’t confuse inflation with dollar depreciation

The article by Heath Muchena, “Is it an AI bubble or is the dollar melting?” (July 8), reminds me of the saying, “A beautiful theory slain by an ugly fact.”

According to his article, the increase in M2 money supply should mean the dollar is “melting”. In fact, according to the nominal broad US dollar index, the dollar is slightly stronger now than it was in 2020.

Perhaps that “ugly fact” is why he chooses bizarrely to measure the dollar against gold and bitcoin, both highly volatile, arbitrary assets backed by nothing more than public sentiment.

The article confuses two different things. Domestic purchasing power (the dollar has clearly lost purchasing power and US prices have risen substantially since 2020) differs from the foreign exchange value of the dollar, which, far from “melting”, is stronger than it was in 2020.

The argument that the increase in dollar-denominated share prices is an illusion caused by a weaker dollar is economically weak. M2 and federal debt growth are not the same thing as dollar depreciation.

Jonathan Schrire

Kenilworth

Cape Town can’t fund every service alone

The article “Cape Town failed Langa and Khayelitsha residents: public protector” (July 7) refers.

I sympathise with the poor people on the Cape Flats during another hard Cape winter, but with the Cape Town Metro’s population ballooning towards 5-million people, someone, somewhere has to fund all these services. It is just not fair for the public protector to blame the municipality or the ratepayers for this shortfall.

Andrew Joubert

Via Business Day online

Plea bargains require sentencing incentives

Your editorial, “Plea bargains must not morph into get-out-of-jail-free cards” (July 8), refers.

This was not a get-out-jail free card. It was a proper sentence, unlike those given to some VBS malfeasants, who got no prison time at all. Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala also still faces trial on other offences.

There is a balance to be struck ― why should an accused plead guilty if no discount at all is given? And should we not focus on those in the government who enabled it?

If Matlala now doesn’t agree to the sentence proposed by the court, the matter goes to trial. There may not be a conviction at all if he goes to trial, especially if section 204 indemnity (for giving evidence) is invoked.

Jean Redpath

Via Business Day online

Ballot box is South Africa’s dialogue

The article by John Dludlu, “National dialogue is failing, but South Africa still needs it” (June 8), refers.

Well, there’s the ballot box, and if you vote for the ANC you are simply endorsing everything that they have done and not done, so please don’t complain about unemployment, low growth, decaying infrastructure, and so on if you vote for the ANC.

There is a real desire to fix the country, but you are correct; the government is the problem. There should be a new social compact based on merit, dignity and the rule of law. The government is only interested in emptying the coffers for their own benefit. Time to move on.

Darryl Williams

Via Business Day online