South Africa’s spare power generating capacity is diminishing rapidly. By 2010 all previously mothballed or active powerplants could be operating at maximum and impede economic growth in the absence of increased supplies of power. But while a tender has already been released for the construction of a new power plant locally and Eskom’s nuclear pebble [...]

#1 No more guns for security companies

#2 Police deny ‘misleading’ reports on gun laws
I hope there’s more truth in the second article. Private security officers outnumbers cops in this country by something like 3 to 1. Denying them guns would be the equivalent of cutting our police force by 75% overnight; it would be a [...]

Thabo Mbeki isn’t the only politician who freely uses the term “conservative” to bash his opponents. Tony Leon isn’t above using the same trick:

[T]he ANC is pursuing a nationalist agenda, not a liberal or a social democratic one… it sees itself as the “organic” or “natural” representative of the “African majority”, which is a nationalist [...]

What’s with the general weirdness that’s been emanating from the ANC over the past few weeks? “Mixed signals” is something of an understatement. To take a quick recap:
4 June: It was still business-as-usual for Thabo Mbeki, who published this screed attacking the DA (replete with cheesy Charles Dickens references). In “A Tale Of Two Parties”, [...]

Fifteen Minutes thinks the Iraqi handover is a signal that the US plans to “cut and run”, while Fodder is saying that the likelihood of success is remote.
Maybe they’re right. But the fact is, the Americans were steadily losing this war, and they had to do something to change that. The “foreign occupiers vs. Iraqi [...]

The Economist has anon the subject of Zimbabwe. The stats about how the GDP has shrunk by a third with a similar collapse in education and other social factors dovetails neatly with the move to castrate the middle class, the prime threat in Mugabe’s eyes.
It’s also worthwhile to note the point raised that when [...]

Affirmative Action is an issue of extremes in South Africa. Like abortion in America, those both pro and anti it tend to adopt hardline positions with little compromise offered. It’s then not so much a situation that Affirmative Action is a problem for its discrimination of other ethnic or racial groups that are better off, [...]

A small court ruling, noted in the previous edition of the Economist, suggests that Fagans $20 billion and $100 billion court cases against Mandela, Mbeki, the South African Government, South African companies and maybe even foreign ones may all be destined for failure.
Recently the American Supreme Court ruled in another case that international firms could [...]

To wrap on the matter of tax: here’s thefor South Africa taxpayers to apply for an online extension to the date by which they must submit their tax assessments. This must be done by Wednesday night this week otherwise tax returns must be in by the 9th of July.
Secondly, a thought on Input VAT and [...]

Over the course of the past several years, reductions in the marginal tax table rates have been presented by the Government as it returning tax to its citizens and especially the poor. The case of it returning money may more mundanely represent real reductions in income tax rates, but beyond that there is something rather [...]

For all employed South Africans earning more than R60,000 per year reading this, the official tax deadline for submitting one’s return for the tax year ending February 2004 is fast approaching at 9 July.
However, if you can’t do so or have a palpitating heart at this stage, you can still apply for an extension until [...]