BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

In a highly significant paper, Nicoli Nattrass uses regression analyses to show that today ’simply being a southern African country increases HIV prevalence massively and significantly’. HIV prevalence, she says, ‘is eighteen times higher for southern African countries’ than anywhere else with similar levels of poverty and inequality (n.d.; emphasis in original). This is all the more striking because throughout the 1980s, as South Africans were engaged in the final struggle against apartheid, Read the rest of this entry »

The domestic investor is yet another class of customer. In June 2004, Allister Sparks, veteran journalist and political commentator, asked the following question: ‘Why do our business leaders seemso reluctant to invest in the new South Africa?’ In marketing terms, his question was really, ‘Why don’t our domestic investors want to buy South Africa, the product?’ Sparks quoted a figure of R392 billion — nearly a third of South Africa’s GDP — which is sitting in the balance sheets of South African corporations and that could be invested in the country. The truth of the matter is, as a custome_rof the country, a domestic investor is going to weigh up the kind of returns to be received and the risk to be faced before this ‘product‘ is consumed. Read the rest of this entry »

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam in Johannesburg on the motorway. Nothing is moving.

Suddenly a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, “What’s going on?”

“Terrorists have kidnapped Jacob Zuma, Winnie Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Jackie Selebi and Manto Tshabalala Msimang. They’re asking for a R310 million ransom. Otherwise they’re going to douse them with petrol and set them on fire. We’re going from car to car, taking up a collection.”

The driver asks, “How much is everyone giving, on average?” Read the rest of this entry »