The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
SACSIS promotes the principle of just economies. We are opposed to economic development that violates social and economic rights and increases inequalities in the pursuit of economic growth.
Leonard Gentle -
The world is tipping over into unknown territory. All the pundits are now starting to agree with US economist, Nouriel Roubini, famous for his prediction of the 2008 financial crash, that a second recession is inevitable. South Africa’s Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus has also added her voice to the chorus warning of another “Lehman type event.”
Since the last recession, the major governments have spent in excess of $24trillion bailing out the banks, dwarfing the money...
Richard Pithouse -
When the Springboks are running rampant even a drab supermarket in a small town can take on a carnival air with excited conversation moving between people without regard to all the usual barriers. But the nation, as we all know, is riven with all kinds of fractures. For the ANC some of these fractures can be useful as it seeks to sustain its moral authority while electoral support declines, popular protest continues and internal battles escalate. But other fractures pose a real challenge to...
Glenn Ashton -
The state has become a major driver of inflation. Our state owned port, railway, road, power and airport authorities have each increased prices at rates that far exceed our targeted or actual inflation rate. Consequently these so-called State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) collectively fuel further downstream inflation.
How does it benefit South Africa if government fiscal policy, supposedly focused on inflation targeting as a key fiscal instrument, is ignored, not only in the breach but in...
Saliem Fakir -
Credit rating is a weighty obligation. Credit rating agencies (CRAs) can either boost a country’s fortunes or bring it down.
CRAs are privately owned agencies that specialize in investigating the credit worthiness (ability to pay back) of governments and companies. CRAs assign credit ratings for issuers of debt-like securities (such as, bonds in the case of governments) that can be traded.
The record of CRAs, though, has been mixed and has been scrutinized for some time now.
In 2003,...
Mandisi Majavu -
Reading the 11th Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) Annual Report, which details the status of employment equity in South Africa, I was reminded of a report that Dr Sabie Surtee and Professor Martin Hall wrote two years ago. In that report titled, ‘Transformation: African People in the Western Cape’, Dr Surtee and Professor Hall conclude that the labour market in South Africa remains “highly inequitable.” Two years later, the 11th CEE Annual Report makes similar...
Richard Pithouse -
The words that escaped from Darren Scott's private life and crashed into the public realm via an argument in a bar are no unique perversion. For anyone with any doubts about the extent to which white racism not only spills over into the new order but also continues to reinvent itself the comments sections on news and analysis websites, spaces that enable public anonymity, make for dispiriting reading.
But with the exception of extreme figures like Steve Hofmeyer white racism is a...
