Readers’Views

Investment-friendly cabinet with no corruptors is what SA needs

Nice column, Hilary Joffe, “Cabinet and Sona must send the right signals” (May 12).

This may be our last chance. What Cyril Ramaphosa does as opposed to what he says will determine our direction.

His recent investment drive, whereby businesses were encouraged to lie and call the ongoing replacement capex needed to maintain existing capacity “new investment”, will not do it.

We are where we are because of ANC policies. Without a fundamental readjustment to those failed policies, we fail.

Derek Salzmann, on businesslive

The fact that the ANC got more than 650,000 votes more at national level than the sum total of its provincial votes is a strong indication that many voters of other parties wagered their vote on Cyril Ramaphosa, hoping for a “magic turnaround”.

Well, those who have done that will know soon if what they did was wise or foolish.

Ramaphosa’s big test to show if he has balls is the appointment of an investment-friendly cabinet that contains no corruptors.

If he falters at this hurdle, it will be a 100% sure sign to those who wagered their votes on Ramaphosa that they have made a grave mistake. Justice Above All, on businesslive

Regulations killing small business

Samantha Enslin-Payne’s column “It ’s getting harder to take the taxman for a ride” (May 12) refers. One of the main issues of regulating small business is that compliance massively drives up the cost of start-up and, therefore, the prices they have to charge.

This removes a whole segment of potential customers (tourists, in the case of Airbnb) who are happy to “self-insure” and are prepared to take the additional risk of a bad experience in order to afford to travel at all. This is undoubtedly a large market who would spend a lot of money in SA.

So the regulations prevent the risk to compliant but expensive hotels from less-expensive but basic overnight stayover suppliers, thereby denying the country additional tourist revenue.

Roy Clarke, on businesslive

‘Free housing in leafy suburbs’

In his column “Jobs for youth is unfulfilled promise made 25 years ago” (April 21), Andile Khumalo refers to the privileges that white people enjoyed under apartheid. He clearly states “free housing in leafy suburbs”.

That is incorrect — houses were not given to white people. It was a normal situation where people bought and sold houses according to supply and demand.

In my opinion, Khumalo fails to pass the test of truthful, fair, accurate and balanced in this column. What makes it more serious, particularly in this charged political climate, is that, with racist utterances by the EFF and BLF political parties, he is adding fuel to the fire with lies such as “free housing in leafy suburbs”.

Khumalo claims to be an entrepreneur and a CA, so he cannot claim to be ignorant of the facts. Anthony Ball, Gillitts