The reform that counts

After 1945 it became almost impossible to find a former Nazi; after 1994 it became almost impossible to find an apartheid supporter; after 2017 it will be impossible to find a Robert Mugabe supporter; and, according to that track record, after 2018 it will be impossible to find a Zuma/Gupta supporter.

The process has already started, with those with a little wit subtly and not so subtly becoming defenders of the Constitution and investigators of corruption.

Those who don’t move nimbly may be exposed or even jailed à la Ignatius Chombo, the former finance minister of Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately, the same metamorphosis does not apply in the economic field, where ANC delusions are set to continue.

As an example, Lindiwe Sisulu used up an acre of newsprint to tell us nice things such as “growth must combine growing GDP with increasing levels of employment , expansion of productive activities and massively increased opportunities, particularly for black South Africans” and the secret to this is “a capable state delivering the services citizens deserve”, and so on and on.

Well, as much as it is true that growth could achieve those things, it is equally true that there is no capable state, and even if there were the policies to which it is wed won’t do the trick.

Only when the ANC can utter the words reform of labour law, privatisation, rule of law, sanctity of property rights and business friendly will we know there has been transformation, in the meaning of the word that matters. Sydney Kaye Cape Town