Corruption fight comes under global spotlight

Corruption in Zambia was under the spotlight as the head of Idasa’s Economic Governance Programme, Richard Calland, recently spoke about corruption in the construction sector. Read full article here.

History of Haiti’s debt relief

- By Nancy Dubosse – A lot has been written about Haiti’s unserviceable debt, given its poverty.  I would like to turn the spotlight onto the reasons why debt relief has been given. When the G7 announced that it would be cancelling outstanding bilateral debt and urging the international financial institutions to do the same, [...]

How did Haiti get here?

- By Nancy Dubosse – I appreciate Pat Robertson’s historical analysis on the causes of the earthquake in Haiti.   By all accounts, the Haitian Revolution has everything a great story should have.  It starts off with the search for and struggle over gold, then sugar, then coffee.  There are fascinating military manoeuvres, which occurred in [...]

Government Committed to Priorities – SA Budget

SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivered the South African medium term budget statement on 27th October. Government priorities remain social spending, infrastructural expansion and job creation. See Idasa’s comment in the video and statement below.

Choosing a New Public Protector for SA

Over the next few weeks, parliament (a committee representing all political parties) will interview potential candidates for our new public protector. So what does the “public protector” do? The primary duty of the Public Protector is to ensure that ordinary citizens benefit from efficient and fair public administration. We need more South Africans to voice [...]

Helping Africa Save Itself

By Witney W. Schneidman originally published in Newsweek, June 2009 Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist, lays out a brash argument in her book, DEAD AID: that the more than $1 trillion in foreign assistance given to Africa over the past 50 years is the root cause of the continent’s enduring poverty, widespread corruption, civil wars, [...]

What did they spend? Party Funding and Campaigns in SA …

By: Judith February With the elections over and the African National Congress celebrating its victory, it is clear that, along with the people, the money has also spoken. Estimates put the ANC’s election spending at between R200million and R400m. No one can be sure of the actual amount, given the lack of transparency in the [...]

Are food parcels being abused to manipulate voters?

By Christi van der Westhuizen www.electionmonitoringnetwork.org ‘‘I‘m going to make sure that if you advertise (sic) an article about my name on the newspaper I will deal with you… If you go to the paper with that thing you’re going to deal with the consequences thereafter… I am not threatening you, you are threatening yourself. [...]

Zuma – More Questions Than Answers

- By Judith February – The charges against Jacob Zuma have been dropped and we are all being urged to ‘move on’.  It is now abundantly clear that what we have witnessed over the past 8 years has been the ANC’s inter-necine battles simmering underneath the genteel edifice of our Constitutional democracy. It makes a [...]