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FMF wins Freda Utley Prize for Advancing Liberty

20 April 2018

February 2010 The Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Washington DC, announced on Monday, 1 February 2010, that it had awarded the 2010 Freda Utley...

Media release: Only 45 days to comment on changing S 25 of the Constitution – the property rights clause – is irresponsible and anti-democratic

19 April 2018

The Free Market Foundation is appalled and alarmed that expropriation without compensation of property (EWC), probably South Africa’s most important constitutional debate since the 1996...

Call to end SA drug approval delays

19 April 2018

The newly formed South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) – successor to the apartheid-era and largely dysfunctional Medicines Control Council (MCC) – has indicated...

FMF NEWSLETTER 18 April 2018

18 April 2018

Weekly newsletter...

FMF media release: New Hate Speech Bill an improvement, but is still unnecessary

17 April 2018

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) welcomes the changes to the controversial Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill (the Hate Speech Bill)...

South Africa should follow winners, not losers

17 April 2018

Nationalisation of property, inefficient State-owned enterprises, raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21, and higher taxes in a low-growth environment. These ideas have...

Auctioning of spectrum could provide the money government is looking for

16 April 2018

Owning the rights to radio frequency spectrum above a given territory is a valuable asset....

South Africa: The Solution (1986…)

16 April 2018

The book, South Africa: The Solution, and the speeches that the authors Leon Louw and Frances Kendall gave on its main thrust of a peaceful...

Property rights are human rights

11 April 2018

We take for granted the rights for which many fought and died. We also seem to be taking lightly the serious threats that are being...

FMF NEWSLETTER 11 April 2018

11 April 2018

Weekly newsletter...

Consumer rights

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Media release: Plain packaging: Five years of failure! An open letter to WHO Director Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus

22 March 2018

“Five Years of Failure!” That’s the message a global coalition of 62 think tanks and rights advocates are sending to the new WHO Director Dr....

Angels and demons and the draconian liquor amendment bill

19 March 2018

Liquor is such a demonised product. It is advocated almost as a lethal poison that evil-minded producers and retailers would wish to administer. ...

Raising the drinking age is condescending and tyrannical; doesn’t work either

07 March 2018

Government appears intent on steaming ahead with the Liquor Amendment Bill, which will, among other things, raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 21....

Tomorrow it is likely to be your turn to have a freedom you value curtailed

13 December 2017

In a democratic society, can government collude with citizens to abuse and undermine the freedoms ordinary South Africans died to ensure? Unfortunately, it can....

Tobacco packaging: Anything but plain

29 November 2017

Why are smokers treated so badly? When justifying the proposed introduction of plain packaging and trying to legalise moral, ethical conduct in South Africa, the...

Media release: The Department of Health’s proposals are an effective ban on smoking

27 November 2017

Government’s interference a threat to rights of individuals, private property owners and bad for business...

Core aspects of anti-tobacco proposals fall short of constitutional criteria

27 November 2017

What, if anything, does our constitution tell us about anti-smoking laws and policies?...

Media release: Department of Health plays Mary Poppins

14 November 2017

Aaron Motsoaledi: “…why do kids need nannies? Because there are certain things which they can’t do for themselves; they need somebody to take care of...

Red herrings and bureaucrats: What are they smoking?

13 November 2017

In a democratic society, can government collude with citizens to abuse and undermine the freedoms ordinary South Africans died to ensure? Unfortunately, it can....

Competition Commission supposedly saves South Africans

28 September 2017

The South African government is bent on saving defenceless South Africans yet again. ...

Economic freedom / Growth

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South Africa should follow winners, not losers

17 April 2018

Nationalisation of property, inefficient State-owned enterprises, raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21, and higher taxes in a low-growth environment. These ideas have...

Auctioning of spectrum could provide the money government is looking for

16 April 2018

Owning the rights to radio frequency spectrum above a given territory is a valuable asset....

Spectrum trading should be encouraged, not banned

05 April 2018

Spectrum are the radio frequencies – a finite resource – that mobile operators use to provide services to consumers. ...

South Africa is not capitalist, but needs to be

04 April 2018

To say that South Africa is a capitalist society is popular among journalists, politicians, and trade unionists....

The virtue of self-interest

14 March 2018

The capacity and need to act in one’s own self-interest is a primordial instinct, irretrievably embedded in the DNA that prescribes human conduct....

Media release: AG qualified audit sounds SAA death knell – should surprise no one

13 March 2018

SAA is finished according to the Auditor General (AG). Or, in the coded language that he uses, his findings “cast doubt on SAA’s ability to...

Media release: A critical week for all data users

05 March 2018

Cost of data is an emotive subject. This is a critically important week for all users. Media and consumers should take note. ...

How Kenya’s bold open-access telecom plan came unstuck

05 March 2018

Kenya’s 2011 national broadband policy contained details of a government project for a “fast track” rollout of a wireless 4G wholesale open-access network (WOAN)....

Mexico’s elaborate open-access telecoms scheme struggles to take off

05 March 2018

The Mexican government obtained a constitutional change in 2013 to enable it to promote competition in telecommunications. ...

Russia abandons autocratic telecom proposal

05 March 2018

In 2010, the Russian government gave mobile-network operator Yota the first licence to offer a fourth-generation (so-called “LTE” or long-term evolution) mobile broadband service at...

Energy

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How government failed to privatise Eskom

13 December 2017

Government is preventing the private sector from being a solution to South Africa’s rising poverty and declining economy, despite the protestations of policy-makers and bureaucrats....

South African taxpayer to foot Eskom’s debt bill

23 October 2017

Eskom’s latest annual financial statements record irregular expenditure of almost R3bn...

Business Day column: Why is the state ignoring its own power policy?

04 September 2017

Exporting coal to Newcastle — that’s what Eskom proposes. The coal-to-Newcastle idiom arose because England’s Newcastle prospered for centuries by exporting coal. ...

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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Media release: Far from protecting consumers, the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act and Twin Peaks cost billions and add nothing

26 March 2018

FAIS, effective in 2004, was supposed to be a significant advance in protecting unsuspecting consumers from ‘rogues’ in the Financial Services sector who were ‘mis‐selling’...

Poverty and inequality: Heed Mandela and follow the Zimbabwe example

20 March 2018

South Africa must learn from the Zimbabwe experience. During 2009 - 2013 when Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC was running the finance portfolio, Zimbabwe lifted all foreign...

Taxing people into poverty

20 March 2018

Tax has been a part of human history for millennia. There are records of farmers in ancient Egypt giving up a portion of their crops...

Media release: Minister Gigaba: Reduce bloated government before introducing new taxes

19 February 2018

Minister Gigaba seemingly has his back against the fiscal wall and will probably announce tax hikes in his 21 February budget. ...

Minister Gigaba – reduce spending and taxes to create jobs

12 February 2018

On 21 February, Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba, will present his annual budget speech before Parliament....

The right to work and debarment in the financial market

29 November 2017

Who in their right mind would believe there is a law on our statute books which is interpreted and applied in such a way that...

Illegitimate FSB directive revoked

13 November 2017

Until very recently, financial intermediaries and advisers (financial-service providers, FSPs) wishing to reappoint representatives who had been debarred from the industry,...

Media release: Twin Peaks now law – a sad day for SA’s financial services consumers

22 August 2017

The controversial “Twin Peaks” regulatory system is now law with the signing of the Financial Sector Regulation Act by President Zuma on 21 August 2017...

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....

Healthcare

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Call to end SA drug approval delays

19 April 2018

The newly formed South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) – successor to the apartheid-era and largely dysfunctional Medicines Control Council (MCC) – has indicated...

Govt squeezing the life out of medical insurance

10 April 2018

Drip by toxic drip, the South African government is slowly and systematically poisoning the private medical scheme and insurance industries in South Africa....

LETTER: State is on wrong track

04 April 2018

For many years, the government has sought an equity partner for its state-owned pharmaceutical manufacturer Ketlaphela....

Health Department’s attack on medical insurance could be unconstitutional

27 March 2018

A recent change to the law governing medical insurance recently came into effect, with the result that many policy holders were stripped of their healthcare...

Media release: Consumers need to understand that medical insurance is changing – for worse

26 March 2018

Insurance is a grudge purchase – a necessary expenditure most of us do not willingly make....

No logic in interfering with folk who can afford health care

13 March 2018

In the budget speech, former Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba cut tax credits that taxpayers receive for their medical scheme contributions to raise an extra R4.2bn...

The private medical scheme is in an extremely precarious situation

05 March 2018

The Competition Commission’s Health Market Inquiry (HMI) into private healthcare confirmed – at great expense – what many people have known for years: the private...

Taxing the sickest and most vulnerable is counterintuitive

05 March 2018

Raising VAT from 14% to 15% is going to disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable members of society and plunge them into deeper levels...

Health policy contradictions

15 February 2018

When it comes to official matters of policy, there are seldom more emotive and complex ones than healthcare....

LETTER: A better approach to health care

31 January 2018

Dr Yogan Pillay from the Department of Health was not being truthful in his opinion piece, “Health of people key to economic health”, published on...

Labour

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NMW to cause economic havoc in rural areas and destroy SA job opportunities

29 March 2018

Researchers exhorting the SA government to implement the NMW reported that they could find no studies showing high job losses from the institution of minimum...

Set South Africa’s forgotten people free – in defence of the unemployed

21 February 2018

Mr Ramaphosa, like most South Africans I am relieved that you have ascended to the country’s highest political post. ...

Media release: Failure to respect constitutional rights causes mass unemployment

24 January 2018

If you have no work, no money and a hungry family, what pay would you work for?...

The minimum wage magic wand

16 January 2018

Would an accountant worth his salt advocate that the best way to keep a business running is to spend money which you do not have,...

A message for Cyril about the 9.422 million unemployed – Just Let Them Work!

21 December 2017

I address this article to Cyril Ramaphosa, the newly elected President of the ANC en route to the Presidency of South Africa....

Business Day column: Catastrophic jobless rate warrants institution of state of emergency

13 December 2017

SA’s unemployment rate is so catastrophic that a state of emergency should be declared....

Failure to respect constitutional rights causes mass unemployment

06 December 2017

South Africa’s unemployed people are subjected to the appalling indignity of being denied the right to negotiate freely with potential employers who, in turn, are...

The truth about South Africa’s mass unemployment

06 December 2017

I have a vision of millions of people, with new hope in their hearts, knocking on doors, saying “I am exempt from the labour laws....

Abundance of unskilled labour in SA could be an opportunity for growth without the National Minimum Wage

30 November 2017

Released just before the Christmas break, the National Minimum Wage (NMW) Bill is open for public comment for a period of just 13 days, an...

Don’t allow altruism to blind you to the economic laws that govern labour

01 November 2017

In the debate over minimum wage, people often become distracted by their inner altruism and ignore the logic behind the economic laws that govern labour...

Land reform

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Media release: Only 45 days to comment on changing S 25 of the Constitution – the property rights clause – is irresponsible and anti-democratic

19 April 2018

The Free Market Foundation is appalled and alarmed that expropriation without compensation of property (EWC), probably South Africa’s most important constitutional debate since the 1996...

Property rights are human rights

11 April 2018

We take for granted the rights for which many fought and died. We also seem to be taking lightly the serious threats that are being...

Land reform urgently needed in urban areas

03 April 2018

In 1991, the Apartheid government committed its gravest violation of human rights: denying black South Africans ownership of land. How did it do this?...

More time required to comment on expropriation without compensation amendment

28 March 2018

South Africans will only have one month to submit comments on government’s plan to amend the Constitution to provide for expropriation without compensation before the...

Land reform: The free market way

27 March 2018

If not expropriation without compensation, then what? How do South Africans finally redress the imbalances caused by apartheid?...

Expropriation: Anti-white in rhetoric, anti-black in practice

15 March 2018

All the progress made since Apartheid ended stands to be undone unless people recognise that a most fundamental human right is for people to have...

EWC tramples the sacrifices made by those who fought against colonialism and apartheid

12 March 2018

The myriad rights which South Africans enjoy were won after decades of struggle against the state....

Media release: A further 52 Free State residents in Parys get title deeds and full home ownership

07 February 2018

Today will see a further 52 tenants in Parys, Tumahole, become land owners in a ceremony presided over the Mayor Joey Mochela to mark the...

Media release: Historic transfer of 117 title deeds in Stellenbosch thanks to the Municipality, Johann Rupert and the FMF

17 January 2018

Today (16th January 2018) an historic occasion took place in the Stellenbosch Town Hall....

Think again, ANC members, before you give up your secure property rights protection!

10 January 2018

How do current members of the ANC know what will happen in the future if they remove the strict protection of property rights from the...

Rule of law / Law

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FMF media release: New Hate Speech Bill an improvement, but is still unnecessary

17 April 2018

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) welcomes the changes to the controversial Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill (the Hate Speech Bill)...

Hate-Speech Bill: A threat to democracy in South Africa

27 March 2018

On February 8, 2018, the Hate Crimes Working Group (HCWG) published a petition, widely covered in the media, decrying the fact that the controversial Prevention...

How the Constitutional Court may still save property rights

27 March 2018

That individuals and communities must have the ability to keep and own things they have earned, found, bought or created, is necessary for any free...

New traffic law inconsistent with the Rule of Law

27 March 2018

The illegalities of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Amendment Bill are too numerous to analyse in the space of one article. ...

Substantive equality cannot override formal equality

20 December 2017

It is now well-accepted in South African constitutional jurisprudence that the Constitution’s guarantee of equality in section 9 is not merely concerned with ‘formal’ equality...

Parliament’s surrendering of power to bureaucrats jeopardises democracy

07 December 2017

Did you know that when you drive 140 in a 120 km/h zone, you are not ‘breaking the law’, at least not directly?...

Request for extension of public comment period on bills gazetted during November 2017

30 November 2017

The departments of labour and telecommunications and postal services together published four bills on 17 November 2017 with hopelessly inadequate periods for public comment....

Short comment periods on new laws are unreasonable and unconstitutional

28 November 2017

The South African government seems to be making it a habit to publish new laws, regulations, and policies close to or over a holiday period....

Submissions on latest drafts of Schedules 1 and 3 to Insurance Bill, 2016

23 October 2017

Free Market Foundation’s written submissions on latest drafts of Schedules 1 and 3 to Insurance Bill, 2016...

Mandatory transparency in political party funding could jeopardise South Africa’s democracy

23 October 2017

That political parties should be transparent about their private funders would be a great win for democracy in South Africa....

Transformation

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FMF wins Freda Utley Prize for Advancing Liberty

20 April 2018

February 2010 The Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Washington DC, announced on Monday, 1 February 2010, that it had awarded the 2010 Freda Utley...

South Africa: The Solution (1986…)

16 April 2018

The book, South Africa: The Solution, and the speeches that the authors Leon Louw and Frances Kendall gave on its main thrust of a peaceful...

Media release: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: “Here lies the drug to coagulate the blood of the bleeding nation…”

10 April 2018

The Free Market Foundation is saddened by the passing of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela with whom executive director Leon Louw and his family had a personal relationship....

Media release: Oxfam or Oxscam? Inequality propoganda exposed

16 February 2018

“Oxfam should be renamed Oxscam as they disseminate false news and failed ideological propaganda, and promote policies that, contrary to their stated goals, maximise poverty...

Oxfam cares about the rich not the poor

07 February 2018

Oxfam, a rich charity based in London, must surely qualify as the biggest hypocrite on Earth and, worse, offers only policies that will harm the...

Media release: Oxfam’s latest report is dangerous and intellectually dishonest

23 January 2018

The international charity, Oxfam, is calling on governments to “end extreme wealth” and further intervene in the business of wealth-producing entrepreneurs to reduce inequality. ...

Zuma’s announcement of free higher education is laughable

10 January 2018

By now everyone has heard President Jacob Zuma’s surprise announcement that students from poor and working-class families will receive grants for free higher education beginning...

Be cautious in the regulation of basic education

03 January 2018

Government appears to be intent on centralising the public education system, thereby eliminating educational diversity and innovation....

South Africa is repeating the mistakes of apartheid

17 October 2017

After the end of Apartheid in 1994, nobody would have guessed that South Africa would be making many of the same mistakes as the Apartheid...

Affirmative action and socio-economic challenges – what are the solutions?

31 August 2017

South Africa’s ostensibly intractable socio-economic problems are a consequence of government policy, whether deliberate or unintentional....

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