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Three policies, all in various forms of implementation, threaten the livelihoods of all South Africans, faltering growth and development and ensuring that unemployment, crime and corruption flourish.
If the government of national unity (GNU) is to usher in a brighter future, it must do all it can to end the oncoming threat of expropriation without compensation (EWC), stop the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI) and put a stop to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies.
EWC will be the final death knell for South Africa’s economy. Private property rights and the assurance that the government can’t just take away your property, is a cornerstone of civilisation.
With EWC, the government will not only have its proposed powers to strip people of their property in the name of redress, but additionally will have the powers to take property away from everyone.
This enables vast amounts of land theft and corruption and is a foundation for totalitarian state ownership of all land.
If EWC is implemented, investment, foreign and local, will flee. Developments will stop. There will be a complete erosion of trust in SA’s economy, and we will follow Zimbabwe’s example and be relegated to the status of a broken nation.
ALSO READ: NCOP backs Expropriation Bill despite constitutional concerns
NHI has been passed, but will take some time to be implemented. This is because the policy is unworkable and potentially disastrous.
NHI has been pushed by deceitful promises of free, universal health care. In fact, all it does is persecute private health care spending, while threatening to force all individuals under a single, bloated, underfunded and corrupt system.
Public hospitals are already a death trap and the public health care system cannot perform adequately as it stands.
NHI wants all South Africans to be cared for under a single public health care system.
Who will pay for this? An already emaciated and crushed taxpayer base already paying tax while easing the burden on the public sector by using private health care.
NHI will destroy our health care system and must be stopped.
ALSO READ: SA’s Healthcare: Should GNU ditch NHI?
BEE, broad-based BEE and other racial quotas, affirmative action and a host of abbreviations all contribute to the flourishing of corruption and unemployment.
While BEE was advertised as an innocent policy to provide redress and help the disadvantaged and previously disadvantaged gain economic opportunities, it has proven to be anything but innocent.
BEE has been leveraged by corrupt individuals to seize tenders, which they inadequately fulfil at exorbitant prices, while also being used to capture private sector businesses and loot their wealth.
Deserving and genuinely disadvantaged black individuals have not benefitted from BEE. Only politically connected, already rich cadres and cronies have benefitted from hiding their nepotism and corruption behind BEE red tape.
ALSO READ: Thousands of jobs may be on the line as Shell ‘plans to leave SA’ amid BEE partner fallout
BEE procurement has resulted in the collapse of service delivery in municipalities across SA, the looting of public coffers and the stifling of economic growth.
Companies don’t want to grow, lest their BEE requirements grow. So, they refuse to employ too many workers in a country with vastly too many unemployed people.
Who can blame them? If a company grows too large and doesn’t hand over a large portion of its business to a corrupt, political appointee (because BEE isn’t as simple as finding any previously disadvantaged individual), they face heavy penalties – fines and the inability to conduct their business.
If we want a brighter future we must embrace sound policy.
This new government has given us the first real opportunity in three decades to push the ANC to set aside its obsession with racial national, Marxism and communist ideology and rather embrace rational policy that will genuinely serve to uplift all South Africans.
• Woode-Smith is an economic historian, analyst and author. He is an associate of the Free Market Foundation and writes in his personal capacity.
