{"id":194542,"date":"2017-08-26T18:05:57","date_gmt":"2017-08-26T16:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=194542"},"modified":"2017-08-25T17:07:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T15:07:17","slug":"south-africas-cronies-cant-even-get-corruption-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/194542\/south-africas-cronies-cant-even-get-corruption-right\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s cronies can’t even get corruption right"},"content":{"rendered":"

For cronyism to work effectively, a country’s economy needs to at least be growing – something South Africa is currently failing to achieve. This makes the country something of an outlier, says Jac Laubscher, economic adviser at Sanlam.<\/p>\n

Citing a recent article published by\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Laubscher said that it was\u00a0not only developing or emerging economies that are characterised by cronyism, but also developed countries in the west.<\/p>\n

He said this was\u00a0especially the case if lobbying to influence policy and legislation, the funding of political parties by business, and the bail-out of firms that are in trouble are included in the characterisation.<\/p>\n

“Corruption is not so much a problem for governments, as it is an approach<\/em> to government – one chosen by far too many rulers today. Rather than a weakness or a disorder, it (corruption\/cronyism) is the effective functioning of systems designed to enrich the powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of its greater ability to create wealth, albeit for the few, countries that are notorious for cronyism tend to favour some variant of a capitalist market economy.<\/p>\n

“A prosperous, rapidly growing economy is, after all, necessary for cronyism not to run into a brick wall once the extraction of wealth from society reaches a tipping point,”Laubscher said. “The deceleration of economic growth will very quickly expose the underlying institutional and structural flaws of the economy.”<\/p>\n

South Africa<\/strong><\/h3>\n

However, while having a “successful” capitalist system is almost a requirement for a crony government, South Africa is different, Laubscher said.<\/p>\n

“A peculiar South African anomaly is the combination of cronyism and low growth, with the latter not being prioritised for remedy.”<\/p>\n

This puts the country at even greater risk, as at its core, cronyism is about making money, no matter who gets stepped on to achieve that end.<\/p>\n

“If crony activity destroys developmental prospects and is antithetical to economic growth and social betterment in a country, that is of no concern (to cronies) whatsoever. Bettering a country\u2019s prospects is not the objective. Making money is.\u201d<\/p>\n

“The public outcry against cronyism in South Africa, even if it succeeds in stopping the current rot, will therefore not be enough to resolve the issue once and for all.”<\/p>\n

“Because of the unique expectations of the South African public for the government to transform the economy into a more equitable arrangement, it will require constant vigilance to prevent malfeasance in the system – the potential for which will always be present.”<\/p>\n

Laubscher said that other international models on cronyism now also no longer apply to South Africa, and that a new, transformative leader is unlikely to have the same effect it would in other countries.<\/p>\n

“Although regime change may be a requirement for dealing with corruption, it is not enough because of the resilience of corruption networks.”<\/p>\n

“The contradiction between kleptocracy and democratic practice urgently needs to be resolved,” he said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0CEO vs employee salaries at Eskom, SAA and other state companies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For cronyism to work effectively, a country’s economy needs to at least be growing – something South Africa is currently failing to achieve. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":99088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26,2880],"class_list":["post-194542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-sanlam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194542"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194720,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194542\/revisions\/194720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}