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| k. November Dr Jim Harris |
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Updated 29 November 2005 * New additions Not giving good reasons to refuse a gun licence The Black Gun Owners Association was established in 2003 when "80% of our licence applications were turned down", as chairman Abios Khoele says. "First you buy the firearm for R4000-5000. Then you need a safe which costs about R250 and revenue stamps which you buy for about R140. Then you have to pay about R750 for training. After you've met all the Act's requirements they turn down your application for 'lack of motivation' - not giving good reasons why you need a gun". 16 000 of BGOA's 30 000 members applied under the old Firearms Control Act and were refused in terms of the new Act's official discretion. Now the rest refuse to apply. The 16 000 will take safety and security minister Charles Nqakula to Pretoria High Court for R3.2m. Why not for the whole wasted R82-98m? The minister raked in R2.24m for revenue stamps alone, so he'll certainly mount a spirited defence with taxpayer funds. Instead he should mount a spirited defence of taxpayers plagued by high crime levels. That might reduce the demand for private weapons of self-defence. (Cit. 29.10) Is zero compensation for expropriated property 'just and equitable'? With extensive farming interests in Zimbabwe, businessman John Newton has applied urgently to the Constitutional Court. He seeks an order that government and President Thabo Mbeki must help him to protect his five farms and massive forestry enterprises worth R58m against President Robert Mugabe's confiscation and land policy. Such quests for constitutional protection and fair administrative treatment may be disappointed, since Mbeki endorses land expropriation in SA. Mbeki does say this must be done in an environment of 'fair compensation'. Well, our constitution's property clause 25 provides for expropriation of property (not limited to land) 'for a public purpose or in the public interest', which could be 'anytime government wants it'. And there must be compensation but clause 25 (3) lets the state ignore market value and decide what payment is 'just and equitable'. What if the state decides on a zero payment, Zimbabwe-style, or even a fine? That's why Newton seeks help and comfort from the SA government. If he gets none, nor will nervous SA property-owners. (Beeld, BD 28.8) Are we privatising or nationalising? Mvelaphanda's Tokyo Sexwale asks why government hangs onto loss-making SAA and Denel. Ceasefire Campaign's Chemist Khumalo adds that disbanding Denel would release its scarce and 80%-white skilled scientists and engineers to do something more productive. But public enterprises minister Alec Erwin says SA must have strategic defence capabilities so he needs Denel to become a strong, commercially-viable company. Then it seems daft not to privatise it, since state control almost guarantees weak, commercially-unviable companies. This was just demonstrated yet again by economic development and investment promotion agency Wesgro. As part of Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool's campaign to avert job losses, he asked Wesgro CEO Ismail Dockrat to acquire Atlantis-based denim-plant Novel Garments. In March 2005, as its Hong Kong owners were about to close the doors and retrench 500 remaining employees, Wesgro nationalised it with R7.6m of public funds. Dockrat's notion was a short-term measure to effect a turnaround then find a buyer. Novel is now down to 100 employees and still in the red. Denim's tough - on taxpayers. (BD 26/27.10) Regarding 'race', everyone's free to choose A Solidarity union member trying to buy Nedbank's Eyethu shares was twice turned away because he was allegedly 'white'. The union may go to Equity Court, since there's no longer any legal framework for race classification. Nedbank couldn't identify criteria but says it's committed to the spirit of broad-based economic transformation which seeks to redress the inequalities of the past, and Eyethu is guided by government policy. Some see 'equity' imposed as a crude colour bar ignoring equal opportunity, skills, experience and ability. Werksmans director Pieter Steyn says black economic empowerment is not a legal requirement - empowerment-related statutes are mere frameworks - 'don't do a BEE deal if you don't want to'. No SA law compels sale or transfer of assets or equity for BEE purposes. Government as contracting party simply relies on the common law principle of freedom of contract and prefers to contract with and grant tenders to BEE players. In law if not in justice or fairness, government can contract with whomever it wishes, and also grant licences and other concessions to promote BEE. So firms that ignore or resist BEE may face commercial consequences. (Finance24, I-Net Bridge, BD 24.10, BR 28.10) Responsible firms may prefer to ignore DTI's BEE codes and flourish The department of trade and industry sought 25.1% direct black ownership of business by releasing its Codes of Good Practice for Black Economic Empowerment. Bravura corporate financier Kobus Gertenbach says the six codes will increase costs and reduce competitiveness of complying SA companies. Opposition leader Tony Leon claims the principles and motivations behind BEE are necessary and good but government's grim application of BEE is the problem. Most countries seeking rapid economic growth deregulate their industries and labour markets, but South Africa does the opposite. Fuel industry deregulation, for example, is delayed indefinitely to give BEE investors time to cover their debts by raking in money from artificially high petrol prices. And there's worse to come. DTI deputy D-G Lionel October thinks the 25.1% ownership target too low to achieve government's desire for 30% of business in black hands by 2014. The Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals says empowerment targets are already overdue to reflect SA's 80%-black demographics. But Gertenbach reminds everyone that compliance is voluntary. No fines or jail terms for firms wishing to save costs, maintain competitiveness and flourish without empowerment verification. That way lies fast growth, for responsible firms if not for SA. (BR 2/4.11, SInd 6.11) DTI finally recognises 45 million consumers! World Trade Organisation reports SA launching more anti-dumping investigations (17) in the first half of 2005 than in the first half of 2004 (5), far more than any other country, in fact more than all Europe's 25 countries put together (15). These days most countries seek amicable solutions instead of taxing cheap imports, often from China. SA firms want taxes on incoming plastics, chemicals and base metals. Also textiles and clothing, sectors which in the last decade threw 100 000 ex-workers into the labour pool. Cosatu wants more protection from Chinese imports for its employed members, without compromising labour rights. SA Textile Federation director Brian Brink wants it for his employer members, only for temporary relief 'to stop the bleeding'. SA Institute of International Affairs researcher Lyall White says the Chinese are highly skilled and on average everyone on Earth wears four 'made in China' garments. With our labour surplus and high unemployment we should be able to compete with cheap labour countries like China, which isn't going to go away. An unaccredited DTI spokesman says don't lose sight of the rights of other economic actors, such as consumers, who demand access to affordable clothing, particularly amongst the less affluent members of the community. At long last, DTI acknowledges needs and preferences of 45 million consumers! (BD 4.11, BT 6.11) Conscripting nurses certainly won't increase their numbers Locating a quorum of MPs, parliament enacted a Nursing Bill giving control of the Nursing Council to health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. The independent statutory body to represent the nursing profession becomes an organ of government. 'Fundamentally undemocratic and unrepresentative,' said DA MP Dianne Kohler-Barnard. The Act also extends the creeping peacetime-conscription policy as nurses face a year's compulsory community service. Kohler-Barnard sees no statutory obligation for the state to ensure effective management of the programme which, if not implemented properly, will 'drive nurses away in droves'. It's too late. By 2003 31% of public health posts were vacant and many registered nurses had left the field. The DA wanted posts made more attractive to potential nursing students. Government chose compulsion. Young women may choose other work or 'foreign fields'. (Cit 17.1, 2.11) Can greater tax-spend boost growth? Tasked to plan for accelerated economic growth, deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka wants to increase public investment. Her task team aims for only 4.5% growth, thinking President Mbeki's requested 6% attainable only after 2010. Can greater tax-spend boost growth to 4.5%? Let's hope so. Treasury already allocated a rising share of GDP to public sector capital investment of R370 billion over the next three years. Harmless enough if done with revenues freed up from other state spending - except that health, education and welfare are also set to rise. But wait - the task team also proposes a Regulatory Impact Analysis System. Scrapping a host of growth-impeding laws could lead to faster growth even with higher taxation. Pigs could also fly. (M&G 4.11) No cutting hair in Durban For decades, 'five-star hotel' state Singapore prohibited its young males from wearing long hair. Durban may be heading the other way. As in Joburg, Durban's street trading bylaws let the cops remove hawkers from site and confiscate their goods. Street barber Nymbona Vecent, who has traded in a temporary gazebo since early 2000, accuses the council of high-handed harassment. He applied to Durban High Court for an interdict to stop Metro Police from removing him from his site. Judge Sharmaine Balton ruled that the bylaw is constitutional and Vecent had no right to occupy the site. Perhaps Vecent should take a class action back to court and ask Judge Balton for a list of the activities still permitted to users of public spaces. This could pre-emptively save Durban ratepayers the endless future funding of new council initiatives and bylaws to criminalise whatever poor people start doing next on 'council property'. (Mercury 8.11) Do you have a knife licence? To protect the Post Office from competition, new regulations forced courier companies to apply for licences by May. SA Express Parcel Association says large operators applied, such as Fedex, DHL, TNT and Sun Couriers which account for about 80% of the R6bn industry. Although the Postal Regulator reduced the licence fee from R550 000 to R500 a year, thousands (95%) of small operators didn't apply. They - and over half a million gunowners who should've re-licenced and haven't - could go to jail. But the DA urges government not to criminalise legal gun owners because of its inability to implement the Firearms Control Act. And Bloemfontein's Supreme Court of Appeal judges say if prison overcrowding is taken into account, it's likely that no one will be sent to jail. Maybe correctional services department will make space for naughty couriers and gunowners by releasing half a million serious criminals. Is this a worry? No, with gun licences hard to get, many women have been buying knives and signing up for self-defence lessons. (BD 8/9/11.11, ST 13.11) Outsource policing to 'illegals'? On outsourcing the SA Police Service now annually spends R66. |
5m which could have employed about 1800 police constables. A bunch of private security companies provide unarmed and armed guards 24 hours a day to look after 190 police stations, half in Gauteng, and various other police buildings in Pretoria. This is supposed to free policemen to carry out the 'crime prevention duties for which they were trained' (hollow laugh). Other security players offer a predictable comment. Aren't private security firms supposed to register with the Security Industry Regulatory Authority. But Sira has no record of three of SAPS' top ten contractors. Of all state agencies, how can SAPS employ unregistered firms? Isn't it bad enough that they make themselves the laughing stock of the world by employing outside firms to guard them? But who dunnit? Can SAPS leaders invoke President Mbeki's latest ANC-Today comment about blaming 'the acts of commission and omission of the democratic order' on 'the legacy of colonialism and apartheid'? Or what about the police tender evaluation section'? Don't they 'check terms and references, functionality and prices'? Maybe it's too dangerous. (M&G 11.11) Rugby transformation quotas are leather spheroids Willie Basson, author of SA Rugby Union's latest transformation document, says merit alone can't work until the playing fields are levelled in terms of access, opportunity and support. Chairwoman Butana Komphela of parliament's sport portfolio committee says government has nothing to show after 10 years of urging sport to transform, so laws enforcing transformation will be enacted in mid-2006. Basson reckons the sporting fraternity doesn't want change, and levels of discontentment will rise as transformation speeds up. But why are more non-whites not playing rugby? If coaches, administrators, and others won't let them, remove all such individuals immediately. But who's to blame if too few good non-white players are interested? Surely if there's equal access but government fails to generate sufficient non-white interest in playing rugby, that's no reason to prevent better white players from participating? It's just like soccer, where quotas of token bad white players would be daft. Access, opportunity and support are crucial. Replacing merit-selection with some arbitrary 'demographic' quota won't win matches. Government shouldn't get involved. (Star 8/11.11) Transport department wants to compete with commercial shipping In the 1970s around 50 ships appeared on SA's shipping register. Now there's only one, the SA Oranje. It's much cheaper to register offshore and avoid SA's shipping tax based on income. The budget announced a planned switch to a tonnage tax based on vessel size, and government may introduce further tax incentives on ship registration next year to spur investment. If it ever offers ship owners competitively low tax rates they may rebuild a significant SA-registered merchant fleet. But can a reactive and transport-controlling government undercut countries determined to retain and expand their existing ship-registering business? More likely is greater state engagement in the industry. Transport department chief director Riad Khan says government may invest in a fleet of coastal ships able to enter small harbours carrying up to 40 container ships. If that were commercially viable, surely they'd already be operating privately. (BD 14.11) Government just hates cheap vehicle imports It would be cheapest to drive second-hand vehicles from Durban harbour to the neighbouring countries that imported them, but government banned this with June 2, 2005 regulation 84 of the National Road Traffic Act. Clearing agents, receivers and shippers applied to Pietermaritzburg High Court to set aside that interpretation by the KZN Transport MEC, the national Transport Minister and the head of the Revenue Service. Regrettably, acting judge Piet Koen thinks 'the underlying purpose of the Act and the regulations is to regulate the registration and licensing of motor vehicles which form part of or are intended to become part of the SA vehicle population, including the ownership and use of them in the Republic.' So the state can continue to deny access to SA roads and the vehicles have to be transported by vehicle or rail. The sooner that South Africans too can import secondhand vehicles the sooner such nonsense can fall away. How cruelly senseless to penalise poor neighbours for bargain-shopping on global markets and prevent poor South Africans from doing the same. (Witness 14.11) Is the health department above the law? The Traditional Health Practitioners' Bill wants to bring SA's estimated 300 000 traditional healers into the formal sector, and some medical schemes wish to incorporate them in their benefit schedules. But Traditional Healers' Association of SA chairman Sazi Mhlongo says the process of registering practitioners is taking far longer than it should. Promulgated in September 2004, the Bill gave the department of health three months to set up an interim Traditional Health Practitioners' Council to oversee registration. It never happened - the department's legal team is supposedly handling the matter and appears to have ignored the legislature's deadline. Is that OK? Isn't some accountable official like state law adviser Enver Daniels responsible for reminding them that parliament makes laws then public servants obey? Can he sit idly by like Constitutional Court judges until the case reaches his attention through proper legal channels? Did he advise health department not to set up the THPC while it's busy crusading for lower medicine prices? At least there's some good news for consumers, in that practising traditional healers registered outside SA aren't yet 'flushed out and arrested' as Mhlongo wants. (BR 16.11) Throwing tax revenues into bottomless pits There must be a secret government regulation, reversing Pareto's 80-20 rule, to keep pouring good taxpayers' money after bad 20%-effective parastatals. Transport minister Jeff Radebe says the current operational capacity of SA's rail system is estimated to be 20% of its installed capacity. Denel chief executive Shaun Liebenberg says most of Denel's plants are operating below 20 percent capacity. Whether for lack of maintenance, or lack of orders, why try to jack up such dismal performance? Why not instead get shot of the lot by fire-sale to the private sector, which can then put it all to much better uses - or to the torch as so much recoverable scrap. But Radebe insists that immediate investment is required to close rail performance gaps in rolling stock, signalling, training and operational planning. And public enterprises minister Alec Erwin says Denel is a viable enterprise that will recover under its restructuring plans. Denel employs "11 000 highly skilled people" and government will continue to support such operations in order to retain these skills, Erwin said. In effect, to keep them off the market which would get value out of them. (BD 7.11, BR 17.11) * Biofuel baby becomes inconceivable Produce motor fuel from soya, sugar cane and maize? Not by over-regulating a non-existent private 'biofuels industry'. Cabinet launched an interdepartmental investigation. Officials are 'establishing the legal framework for the development of the industry' - forging the shackles for anyone who might invest in agricultural projects and biofuel refineries. Science and technology department co-ordinates assorted public and private institutions including various science councils - they'll want subsidising with biofuel levies. Department of agriculture is 'challenged' to preserve 'the security of the country's food supply while diversifying energy sources' - they'll want biofuel-farming permits, annually renewable like uncertain fishing quotas. Minerals and energy minister Hendricks wants sustainable emerging black biofuel farmers and women-owned rural biofuel businesses - white commercial farmers can expect discrimination. Supportively the oil majors want to buy specified-quality, crude-oil-blendable, competitively-priced biofuel and do all the marketing - they'll get monopoly control of potential competitors. Consumers - can forget about cheap biofuel. (BD 25.11.05) * National Credit Bill pleases loan-sharks You get less of what you regulate, such as formal-sector consumer borrowing, retail sales and profitability. It is alleged that retailers agreed on a need for more legislation to protect consumers from over-indebtedness and irresponsible spending. Anyway, trade and industry department obliged. The National Credit Bill will replace the Usury and Credit Agreements Acts next year. Before offering credit, retailers will have to do an exhaustive financial means test which may frighten away customers. Daunting compliance costs including staff training, marketing and system upgrades will hit clothing and furniture retailers and others. DTI has probably underestimated the huge management costs to business of maintaining a national loans register. The National Council of Provinces has yet to debate the bill, and should ponder whether DTI's boost to the loan-sharking 'industry' is wise. (BD 22.11) * The streets are taking to the courts Plucky street barber Nyomba Vecent went to Durban High Court to interdict Metrocops to stop harassing him. Then street traders made a direct constitutional challenge to eThekwinin Municipality's 'predatory' bylaws and the Businesses Act. Many SA municipalities have similar bylaws, so success by chairman Perumal Naidoo and his Phoenix Plaza Street Traders' Association would have countrywide impact. Is it constitutional to impound and permanently confiscate goods leaving many traders destitute and unable to earn a living? The job-creating Coca Cola System initiative of cold-drink robo-vendors took out full-page newspaper adverts against Joburg mayor Masondo's high-handed clean-up programmes and the unacceptable conduct of his Metro Police Department's By-Law Enforcement Unit. To no effect. Like Durban's, Joburg citizens should forget about miracles of transformation from incompetent and wicked municipal officials and apply for their legal restraint. (Star 14.11, Mercury 24.11) * Ask for more regulation and you'll get unacceptable outcomes Environment minister van Schalkwyk's long-overdue fishing permits idle the rock-lobster fishing fleet in harbour. Government jacked up prices of petrol, water, schooling, telecommunications and electricity 12.1% in the year to September, 7.7% faster than SA's standard international CPI inflation rate. Still faster increases are planned to fund public enterprise minister Erwin's R165 billion infrastructure spending plans and the selling of electricity more cheaply to neighbouring countries. But like Oliver Twist we keep asking for more regulation. Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry begs government for a comprehensive register of skills lacking in SA before public service minister Fraser-Moleketi goes recruiting overseas. Road Freight Association and Unitrans Freight want transport minister Radebe to regulate enforcing their load accreditation programme and stop 'abuse' by competitors who 'overload'. The new National Energy Regulator will prevent unregulated markets leading to 'unacceptable outcomes', says energy minister Hendricks. Far from promoting her 'investment and diversification', the constant drizzle of new government interference, rules and 'central co-ordination' just engenders more of the private paralysis that statists love to call an 'investment strike'? (M<&G 25.11, BD 21/24.11) |
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