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A generous dose of private healthcare to cure what ails us

18 August 2017

Few things violate the rational mind as much as the disruptive policies the minister of health prescribes for private health providers and the country....

LETTER: Medicine plot Kafkaesque

17 August 2017

The Competition Commission’s investigation into pharmaceutical companies for alleged "excessive pricing, price discrimination and/or exclusionary conduct" could easily be a plot line in one of...

Trampling individual rights, the mark of collectivism

17 August 2017

What does the sugar tax; an increased minimum drinking age; National Health Insurance; a wealth tax; the spectre of White Monopoly Capital; state capture; tenders;...

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)

17 August 2017

Any inventor needs assurances that their ideas, once put into the public domain to be capitalised upon, will receive adequate protection....

SAA has no place in South Africa

16 August 2017

Good Luck to Vuyani Jarana, new CEO of SAA. Unfortunately, he will need much more than that. ...

FMF NEWSLETTER 16 AUGUST 2017

16 August 2017

Weekly newsletter...

New SAA bailout package shows government is not committed to transformation

15 August 2017

With low economic growth prospects, ever-increasing unemployment and destitution, government appears to be more concerned with the useless prestige and status that comes with our...

Business Day column: Meme of insurers as pariahs is a ploy for greater regulation

10 August 2017

The insurance industry is reprehensible, according to Ismail Momoniat. He should know. As the Treasury’s deputy director-general, he orchestrates its regulatory diarrhoea....

Business Day column: High cost of flying the flag and keeping a fossil in the skies

10 August 2017

A terrifying flock of pterodactyls — gigantic dinosaur-era flying reptiles long presumed extinct — was spotted in our skies last week. Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba...

The inequality bells are ringing again

08 August 2017

In an article for the Daily Maverick (26 July 2017) Professor Ben Turok calls for more information regarding the wealthy in South Africa. ...

Consumer rights

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Reviewing freedom of choice, as plain packaging tobacco rules considered

07 June 2017

Freedom of choice flies out the window when so-called ‘bad' choices can summarily be overruled or interfered with by government. ...

Media release: World No Tobacco Day: 31 May 2017 – FOCUS: Plain Packaging

30 May 2017

“Consumers, by definition, include us all. They are the largest economic group in the economy, affecting and affected by almost every public economic all....

COMMENTS to the DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY (for the attention of Ms Nkoe Ramphele)

03 April 2017

We note with approval that the National Liquor Policy reiterates that the 1997 Policy consideration of “giving priority to facilitation of entry” remains a critical...

Submission: Draft Liquor Amendment Bill, 2016 Joint Comment to the Director-General of the Department of Trade and Industry

07 March 2017

The draft Liquor Amendment Bill cannot be rescued. The Constitutional Court has already ruled its conceptually identical precursor unconstitutional....

Business Day column: Let us bust the myths and not believe the nonsense in 2017

20 December 2016

Since this is my last 2016 column, I was asked by the government to wish readers a joyless festive season and unhappy new year....

Media release: Concerned organisations submit joint comment on the draft Liquor Amendment Bill

01 December 2016

A joint comment on the Draft Liquor Amendment Bill was submitted by the following organisations to the DTI Director-General on Wednesday, November 30...

Business Day column: Spare us the farcical forums and pretend policy powwows

30 November 2016

Farcical "workshops", "consultations", "seminars" and "indabas" parade as compliance with the constitutional requirement that laws and policies must be preceded and influenced by public participation....

Business Day column: Beware the ‘fascist incest fest’ that will be the WHO’s COP7 tobacco meeting

09 November 2016

Who is WHO? Because of the answer, you should adopt the "brace position" suggested by airlines before a crash. ...

Business Day column: Beware the ‘fascist incest fest’ that will be the WHO’s COP7 tobacco meeting

09 November 2016

Who is WHO? Because of the answer, you should adopt the "brace position" suggested by airlines before a crash. ...

The rise of illicit tobacco

07 November 2016

The World Health Organization meets next week in Washington DC and will discuss the rise of illicit cigarettes, which are increasingly caused by WHO efforts...

Economic freedom / Growth

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Trampling individual rights, the mark of collectivism

17 August 2017

What does the sugar tax; an increased minimum drinking age; National Health Insurance; a wealth tax; the spectre of White Monopoly Capital; state capture; tenders;...

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)

17 August 2017

Any inventor needs assurances that their ideas, once put into the public domain to be capitalised upon, will receive adequate protection....

SAA has no place in South Africa

16 August 2017

Good Luck to Vuyani Jarana, new CEO of SAA. Unfortunately, he will need much more than that. ...

New SAA bailout package shows government is not committed to transformation

15 August 2017

With low economic growth prospects, ever-increasing unemployment and destitution, government appears to be more concerned with the useless prestige and status that comes with our...

Business Day column: High cost of flying the flag and keeping a fossil in the skies

10 August 2017

A terrifying flock of pterodactyls — gigantic dinosaur-era flying reptiles long presumed extinct — was spotted in our skies last week. Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba...

The inequality bells are ringing again

08 August 2017

In an article for the Daily Maverick (26 July 2017) Professor Ben Turok calls for more information regarding the wealthy in South Africa. ...

Media release: Government interference will drive data prices up, not down

08 August 2017

The #datamustfall campaign is dangerous populist disinformation that has government ministers, ICASA and the communications portfolio committee trying to force price control on the private...

Business Day column: Gigaba’s overcooked action plan will take SA further off course

02 August 2017

If you want to understand the government’s economic policy, don’t go away. It works like this: your GPS says you are 200km from your destination....

Capitalism: The only radical choice

26 July 2017

What does the sugar tax; an increased minimum drinking age; National Health Insurance; a wealth tax; the spectre of White Monopoly Capital; state capture; tenders;...

Mugabe, thanks for independence – ShowMeMyFreedom

18 July 2017

Thanks to much-celebrated African nationalists, I am politically independent but in desperate need of freedom....

Energy

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Business Day column: Stagnation no reason for Eskom to celebrate

29 August 2016

ESKOM is electrifying. Not in the sense that it is electrifying rural areas, or mines and factories, but in a shockingly electrifying sense. ...

Submission to High Level Panel on ELECTRICITY – OVERVIEW

20 August 2016

Submission to High Level Panel on ELECTRICITY – OVERVIEW...

Business Day column: Eskom is victim of bad policies and absurd expectations

25 March 2015

AS PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown has no idea why Eskom’s four top executives are incoherent, she suspended them....

Financial sector

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Business Day column: Meme of insurers as pariahs is a ploy for greater regulation

10 August 2017

The insurance industry is reprehensible, according to Ismail Momoniat. He should know. As the Treasury’s deputy director-general, he orchestrates its regulatory diarrhoea....

LETTER: Hands off money supply

04 August 2017

The public protector’s call for a constitutional amendment to bring an end to inflation targeting is confused and confusing....

Media release: FSR Bill & Twin Peaks is bad policy - should be sent back for reconsideration

12 July 2017

On 22 June 2017, Parliament passed the Financial Sector Regulation Bill (FSRB), which introduces the Twin Peaks regulatory system....

FAIS clearly unclear

26 June 2017

A norm cannot be regarded as a “law” unless it is formulated with sufficient precision to enable the citizen to regulate his conduct....

Any tax hurts the poor the most

22 June 2017

Low-growth and the resulting decrease in government revenue around the world, but especially in South Africa, has led to increased calls for higher taxes on...

FAIS: Debarring representatives violates the Rule of Law

14 June 2017

The provision of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act of 2002 (“FAIS”) that vests in employers the power and obligation to banish (“debar”) financial-services...

Submission to the Davis Tax Committee on Macro issues and the Flat tax

13 June 2017

The Davis Tax Committee was requested by the Minister of Finance to inquire as to whether it would be appropriate to introduce additional forms of...

Submission to the Davis Tax Committee on proposed Land tax and Value of property tax

13 June 2017

The Davis Tax Committee was requested by the Minister of Finance to inquire as to whether it would be appropriate to introduce additional forms of...

Submission to the Davis Tax Committee on proposed Wealth Tax

13 June 2017

The Davis Tax Committee was requested by the Minister of Finance to inquire as to whether it would be appropriate to introduce additional forms of...

Media release: Work FIVE more days in 2017 than 2015 to pay for government spending

25 May 2017

Thursday, 25 May 2017, is Tax Freedom Day (TFD). Five days later than in 2015 and six weeks later than in 1994....

Healthcare

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A generous dose of private healthcare to cure what ails us

18 August 2017

Few things violate the rational mind as much as the disruptive policies the minister of health prescribes for private health providers and the country....

LETTER: Medicine plot Kafkaesque

17 August 2017

The Competition Commission’s investigation into pharmaceutical companies for alleged "excessive pricing, price discrimination and/or exclusionary conduct" could easily be a plot line in one of...

LETTER: Health plan authoritarian

07 August 2017

The latest iteration of the national health insurance (NHI) policy paper induces a depressing sense of déjà vu....

Media release: Critical details still missing on NHI and too few tax payers to shoulder NHI funding burden

19 July 2017

The national health insurance (NHI) policy paper is pure déjà vu. We are no closer to understanding critical details, such as how much the scheme...

The battle of the sectors - public vs private. Where should the focus be?

21 June 2017

In 2014, the Competition Commission launched the Healthcare Market Inquiry (HMI) into private healthcare after the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, approached them with...

Submission on National Development Plan: Promoting health

07 June 2017

If South Africa wants better health outcomes, it must have economic growth....

Paying for Intervention! How statutory intervention harms South African health care

07 June 2017

In 1998, the medical scheme market in South Africa was dramatically altered when the SA government introduced a new Medical Schemes Act. ...

Public health is in critical condition, and the NHI cannot save it

26 April 2017

The recent revelations by the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) in their 2015-16 inspection report, which was presented in Parliament recently, has raised alarm...

Government’s NHI plan is based on squeezing out private healthcare

20 April 2017

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has been tasked with an important aspect of the "radical economic transformation" agenda, and that is to nationalise healthcare in SA....

Media release: NHI Demarcations Regulations – Two million people set to lose medical insurance overnight

19 March 2017

The Department of Health has requested that the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) grant a limited two-year exemption period for primary healthcare providers who submit...

Labour

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Government cannot wish away the unemployed!

28 June 2017

Is the government unconcerned about the devastation of employment in the rural areas that the National Minimum Wage (NMW) will cause?...

Minimum wage a danger

02 June 2017

John Spiropoulos (The minimum wage and the moral economy) expresses concerns about the plight of the poor and high levels of dependency, which I share....

How to ensure more South Africans celebrate Workers’ Day as workers

16 May 2017

During apartheid, labour was heavily regulated, with workers and employers having to defer to the whim of government in how they conducted their relationships. ...

The National Minimum Wage will deepen South Africa’s unemployment crisis

19 April 2017

The proposed National Minimum Wage (NMW), due to come into force on 1 May 2018, is a quick fix to a systemic problem that will...

Anguish over low wages but no pity for the 9 million who earn zero

08 March 2017

The proponents of the compulsory National Minimum Wage (NMW) admit that some people at the lowest level of the income scale will lose their jobs....

Business Day column: A hugely important victory for South African labour

06 December 2016

IT MIGHT have been the most expensive day in South African high court history....

Want to increase unemployment? Here’s how

24 November 2016

I have a confession to make. I am not an economist and I have not read any of the studies that either promote or oppose...

Media release: How best to increase unemployment? Introduce a National Minimum Wage

21 November 2016

The expert advisory committee has proposed a national minimum wage of R3,500 to combat South Africa’s high levels of poverty and inequality. ...

Media release: NMW will be economically insane and morally reprehensible and based on three widely contradictory studies

07 October 2016

Using his phrase TANSTAAFL, ‘there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’, Louw said that the fundamental economic principle against a minimum wage is...

Business Day column: Minimum wage is an idea of megalomaniacal and uninformed politicians

28 September 2016

BE AFRAID, be very afraid. SA has tumbled down the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index to its lowest level to date. During apartheid,...

Land reform

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Media release: 58 Theewaterskloof municipality tenants find true economic transformation in a title deed and home ownership

25 July 2017

Today, 25 July 2017, 58 township residents will take the first step towards true economic empowerment ...

Land reform: restitution, not redistribution, is the proper vehicle

26 May 2017

The disallowance of foreign ownership of agricultural land and the creation of a race and gender registry of landowners are among the proposals contained in...

Media Release: New agricultural land reform bill seeks redistribution rather than restitution and is unconstitutional

02 May 2017

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) says that new land reform provisions contained in the Regulation of Agricultural Land Holdings Bill, ...

Business Day column: Racists do not trust black people with full land ownership

19 April 2017

To understand what the trendy left racists who dominate land policy discourse have in mind, imagine a post-apartheid mixed marriage couple who buy neighbouring properties....

Submission: Regulation of Agricultural Land Holdings Bill

18 April 2017

The hallmark of Apartheid was its denial of property rights to black, coloured, and Indian South Africans. Starting in 1913,...

Government land is central to land reform

22 March 2017

With politicians spewing anti-property rights rhetoric, we could but wonder what exactly sets the democratic government apart from the former apartheid regime....

Your property, your rights

08 February 2017

Everything you need to know about property ownership and title deeds...

Property rights our most important fight in South Africa

01 February 2017

For South Africans to buiald their communities, increase their wealth and make better lives for their children, their private property rights have to be secure,...

Why RDP housing is keeping people poor

21 December 2016

Most people would agree that racial discrimination characterised apartheid. ...

RDP housing inadequate for transformation

15 December 2016

Most people would agree that racial discrimination characterised apartheid....

Rule of law / Law

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Reducing the number of provinces is an affront to the Rule of Law and democracy

02 August 2017

The African National Congress’ suggestion that the number of provinces be reduced from nine to six comes as a shock. ...

Reckless amendments to the Constitution will be illegal

12 July 2017

Calls to chop and change our Constitution amount to little more than spur-of-the-moment political kneejerks....

Submission on the Copyright Amendment Bill

07 July 2017

In May 2017 the Department of Trade and Industry introduced the revised Copyright Amendment Bill. This submission explains property rights and the Rule of Law,...

Have we been underemphasising public participation?

04 July 2017

Public participation in the affairs of government is democracy in action. Government receives a general mandate once every five years, however, public participation serves to...

Institutions must remain mindful of their core mandate

27 June 2017

Institutions and the rule of law are the essential elements that protect individual South Africans from the excesses and abuses of state power....

The rule of Anu and Bel

07 June 2017

“(And) then Anu and Bel (both gods) called by name me, Hammurabi, The Exalted Prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness...

The Hate Speech Bill: another instalment in the march towards tyranny

22 May 2017

A curious right that has emerged from the rights culture of the past 70 years is the right to be not offended....

Public participation and impact assessments

16 May 2017

An Analysis of the Principle of Public Participation in Policy-Making, including Socio-Economic Impact Assessments, and their Application in South Africa...

Lipservice or participatory democracy?

12 April 2017

The subjugation of black South Africans to arbitrary, discretionary rule by officialdom and the whims of politicians was one of the hallmarks of apartheid....

South Africa’s Rule of Quasi-Law

05 April 2017

Quasi-law has become the norm in South Africa, with Parliament acting as a delegator of powers rather than the representative law-making body it is supposed...

Transformation

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LETTER: Party mimics Nat policies

07 August 2017

Should we feign surprise at Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba using taxpayer money for the latest, no-strings-attached R2.3bn bail-out to South African Airways (SAA)?...

Radical economic transformation hobbled by intrusive and excessive regulation

05 July 2017

The South African insurance industry is an Oligopoly. That is, a market structure similar to a monopoly, but in which a small number of companies...

Media Q&A: RET: Critical media questions for the ANC Policy Conference

03 July 2017

Radical economic transformation (RET) must happen. For over 40 years the Free Market Foundation (FMF) has been promoting real radical economic transformation and a fundamental...

Submission on National Development Plan: Building safer communities

19 June 2017

Understanding property crime as a market can provide a useful first step to devising strategic approaches to its control … heavier application of a narrow...

Media release: Radical criminal justice reform: Decriminalise victimless conduct and keep our judiciary independent

19 June 2017

South Africa is renowned globally for violent crime and rape. Law enforcement in South Africa has a monumental job and the ANC Policy Conference at...

Making America great again

14 June 2017

Liberty is what made the United States of America different from the rest of the world. It was at the core of America’s historical greatness...

Media release: Radical legal transformation: Embrace Mandela’s rule of law not apartheid arbitrary governance

13 June 2017

South Africa’s democracy is founded on the “supremacy of the constitution and rule of law.” ...

Media release: Radical healthcare transformation: Bring healthcare back to the people and away from government

12 June 2017

Affordable and quality healthcare is critically important to fight unemployment and poverty and achieve radical economic transformation....

Media release: FMF, COSATU and the ANCWL agree on taxes – that’s radical

07 June 2017

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) has opposed the idea of a sugar tax since it was first conceived and championed by health minister Dr Aaron...

Castro, the darling of the left, created an apartheid hell in Cuba

07 June 2017

I've been to Cuba several times. Everything worth looking at was built either under the Spanish or during the time of former president Batista (including...

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