Accountability crisis stems from prioritising patronage over service
Dumisani Jantjies’ article refers (“The municipal insolvency elephant”, August 6). Trying to obfuscate the municipal dysfunction issue by talking about playing fields with land mines misses Mmusi Maimane’s point completely. Perhaps deliberately.
Parties rigorously compete for seats on local municipality councils. They fight tooth and nail for access to whatever funds those authorities have. Fragile coalitions routinely collapse because swing vote players accept better offers from out-of-office parties, changing the guard repeatedly. These jobs are keenly sought out and competed for.
Now Jantjies wants to tell us they operate with one hand tied behind their back. So? Incumbency bestows responsibility and obligation. To understand the dynamics. To deal with the constraints. To speak openly about the challenges and enlist private actors such as neighbourhoods and local businesses to help.
This is not what happens in these defaulting, bankrupt municipalities. They immediately employ their mates ― these entities are bloated beyond description ― gobbling up most of what they have. Basic routine functions such as billing and collections are neglected. Existing functioning services like refuse removal are abused as those budgets are raided to fund yet another jolly. Services collapse.
We must never remove accountability from a strata of modern rent-seeking politicians who’ve done the devil’s work of damaging our rural and small town economies and are now making progress to achieve the same at metro level.
The writer can point out these funding issues but nothing is fixed unless first, good and competent people are on the ground, not the other way round.
Martin Neethling
Via Business Day online
If halal certification is problematic, what about kosher?
Daniel Jacobi’s unsolicited letter begins with a non sequitur: it acknowledges religious certifications are used by businesses if they’ve established consumer demand for it, but then questions whether those self-same consumers are aware of it.
My quibble is not that he questions how religious certifications in general became the default standard in supply chains, but rather that he singles out halal certifications as representing the interests of a small minority of the population.
If halal’s low representativity is the factor he uses to determine whether the certification process is egregious to him, why fail to mention what should be a far more egregious example: the kosher certification for a far smaller religious group? Is there an ulterior purpose behind his questioning?
But such an argument is actually moot, for Jacobi’s thesis is a fundamentally wrong one to begin with. Religious certifications have become a part of our consumer ecosystem not through some “tyranny of the minority”, but rather as a reflection of the plurality of our society, which accords respect to multiple religions.
If he were to go to KwaZulu-Natal, for example, he might find that in a gratifyingly South African way halal and kosher certifications are often used as markers of general food quality by consumers of other faiths.
Kalim Rajab
Saxonwold
Enjoy lower consumer food price inflation while you can
South African Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago raises an important issue: that the outlook for food price inflation in South Africa carries risks (“El Niño heats up risk for SA food inflation”, August 7).
Some South African farmers avoided the recent shock to fertiliser prices as the Middle East war started after the 2025-26 summer crop planting. We also had the good fortune of La Niña rains, which delivered a record grain harvest of 21.5-million tonnes, up 4% year on year, in the 2025-26 season.
Fruit and vegetable crops have been plentiful. The livestock sector is also recovering after a challenging period due to foot-and-mouth disease, improving supplies and lowering meat price inflation.
It is these positive developments, among other things, that have contributed to lower consumer food price inflation, which was at 1.4% in June, the lowest level since December 2010.
However, in the 2026-27 season we are set to shift into an El Niño drought period, which will weigh on agricultural production. Fertiliser and diesel prices remain a challenge for farmers.
Planting decisions will be clear from mid-October, but we don’t think we will see the same difficulties as in past droughts ― food price inflation averaged 10.8% in 2016, for example.
The relatively high water levels in South Africa’s dams will help with fruit and vegetable production, and better soil moisture will help at the start of the planting period. However, much will still depend on how intense the coming El Niño turns out to be.
As the governor says, we should enjoy the lower consumer food price inflation for now but remain aware that the path ahead has some risks.
Wandile Sihlobo
Agricultural economist and author
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businessday.co.za. Letters of more than 200 words may be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Business Day
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.