Three quick cuts to jump-start the SA economy
SA’s future lies in a mixed economy with a liberated infrastructure grid, not a Soviet-style ministry dictating who may build what and where There are few sounds more satisfying than the crack of sekelbos splitting clean under a sharp axe: the reward of precision, strength and purpose. SA’s economy needs just such a moment of precision, strength […]
Free SA says there’s very little to celebrate this Workers’ Day
As South Africa marks Workers’ Day on 1 May, Free SA stands not with the elites in regalia or the podiums heavy with empty slogans, but with the 12.2 million South Africans who want to work, but cannot. Not because they lack will or skill, but because they have been shut out of an economy […]
Regulating Ourselves Into Insecurity: Why the PSIRA Draft Regulations Are a Misfire
PSIRA draft regulations fail miserably. They are punitive where they should be enabling. They are theoretical where they should be practical. And they are political where they should be urgent. Written by: Reuben Coetzer At a time, more prevalent than ever before, when violent crime grips South Africa with increasing ferocity, where gender-based violence festers […]
The South African Executive: A Shrine to Dead Ideologies
When a government begins to resemble a corporate year-end function—replete with inflated titles, overlapping responsibilities, and far too many people doing far too little—it ceases to be a cabinet and becomes a congregation. South Africa’s executive, now swollen to 77 members, has long since abandoned (arguably never adopted) the lean pragmatism of constitutional governance. Instead, […]
The subtle re-racialisation of property rights
In South Africa’s long and painful journey from apartheid to democracy, the de-racialisation of law and statecraft has been both a moral imperative and a constitutional necessity. Ours is a society founded on the idea that race, once the central axis of oppression, should never again be the determining factor in the shaping of one’s […]
Suid-Afrika se Skynvordering na Nie-Rassigheid
In 1991 is die Wet op Bevolkingsregistrasie, die hart van die apartheidstaat se raswette, herroep. Dit was simbolies en wetlik die einde van amptelike rasseklassifikasie deur die staat in Suid-Afrika. Tog, drie dekades later, sit Suid-Afrika steeds met talle stukke wetgewing wat, ironies genoeg, rasseklassifikasie nie net subtiel impliseer nie, maar afdwing en vereis. Al […]
Stamped out: the case for letting go of the SAPO
By Reuben Coetzer, Free SA spokesperson In South Africa, policy reform often arrives like a postmarked letter from the past—late, smudged, and slightly irrelevant by the time it reaches its destination. So it is with the recent call by the DA GNU Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies for public comment on the South African […]
Cutting the fiscal fat
By Reuben Coetzer, Free SA spokesperson If words were actions, South Africa would have the sleekest, most efficient government on the planet. Budget speeches and reform proposals promise leaner administration, cost-cutting, and a “capable state.” Yet, year after year, we remain burdened with an overstuffed executive and a civil service bloated with inefficiency. And yet […]
Derailing the gravy train
by Paul Maritz, Director at Free SA Quick question, dear reader: who, praytell, is the Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities? Or the Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation? How about the Minister of Social Development? If you caught yourself hesitating, even just for a moment, don’t feel too bad […]
Paul Maritz: SA’s problem isn’t low wages, it’s no wages
by Paul Maritz, Director at Free SA The real minimum wage in SA isn’t R28.79 an hour — it’s zero. That’s the brutal reality for millions of unemployed South Africans, for whom the minimum wage is not a safeguard but a locked door keeping them out of the job market entirely. Instead of addressing this […]