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Hindustan Times
04-08-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
India, US may invest in Africa's critical minerals
India and the US have discussed proposals to jointly invest in critical minerals projects in Africa, according to persons aware of the matter. Both New Delhi and Washington have been keen to construct new critical minerals supply chains to reduce their dependence on China. India, US may invest in Africa's critical minerals According to an analysis by the International Energy Agency, China has a dominant 70% market share in the refining of over a dozen key critical minerals such as gallium, graphite, lithium and nickel. Critical minerals are used in the making of everything from solar panels and lithium ion batteries to medical imaging and wind turbines. America's Department of State and the Development Finance Cooperation initiated talks with key Indian companies and government ministries to consider interest in taking advantage of India's extant business networks in East Africa for critical minerals projects. The talks began during the tenure of the Biden Administration, and the emphasis continues . 'We are working closely with India to strengthen bilateral cooperation on critical minerals, an essential priority for both our countries' economic security. Through COMPACT (Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) and TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology), we are working together to strengthen supply chains to ensure access to critical minerals and support industry innovation,' said a State Department spokesperson in response to a query from HT. 'At the recent Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting, the Quad partners also announced the launch of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, which will strengthen economic security and collective resilience in the face of economic coercion, price manipulation, and supply chain disruptions in this sector,' the spokesperson stated before adding that the State Department has no immediate information to share on joint US-India investments in Africa. In January 2025, India established the ₹16,300 crore National Critical Minerals Mission to boost domestic production of these minerals and reduce dependence on foreign imports. According to the ministry of heavy industries, the Geological Survey of India undertook 368 exploration projects focused on critical and strategic minerals in 2024-25. India has also sought international partners for the creation of new critical minerals supply chains. In 2023, India joined the Minerals Security Partnership , which is led by the United States and includes the European Union, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. 'MSP partner governments engage across a wide range of agencies and departments, including those responsible for foreign affairs, economy, energy, trade, mining, industry, development finance, and export finance. MSP partners established the Finance Network to bring together the development finance institutions (DFIs) and export credit agencies (ECAs) of the MSP partner governments to concretely focus on project finance,' according to the US State Department. Despite these efforts, the International Energy Agency estimates that efforts to diversify supply chains will make slow progress. For example, IEA predicts that critical minerals refining supply chains will only see marginal diversification by 2035 with China remaining the dominant player.
Hindustan Times
02-08-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
‘Ties survived many challenges': India amid Donald Trump's tariff threat
New Delhi : In the face of President Donald Trump's punitive tariffs on Indian goods and criticism of energy and defence purchases from Russia, India on Friday said its ties with the US had overcome several challenges and New Delhi is committed to taking the relationship forward. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal addresses a weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Friday.(ANI) Responding to the US's 25% reciprocal tariff that becomes effective on August 7 and an unspecified additional penalty for purchasing Russian oil, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly media briefing that India remains focused on the 'substantive agenda' that the two sides have agreed on to drive the relationship. He also pointed to the potential for growing the 'strong defence partnership' with the US. At the same time, Jaiswal defended India's procurement of energy and defence hardware from Russia, saying New Delhi and Moscow have a 'steady and time-tested partnership'. He also made it clear that defence requirements are determined by India's national security imperatives and strategic assessments. 'India and the US share a comprehensive global strategic partnership anchored in shared interests, democratic values and robust people-to-people ties. This partnership has weathered several transitions and challenges,' Jaiswal said in response to several questions regarding Trump's tariff policy. 'We remain focused on the substantive agenda that our two countries have committed to and are confident that the relationship will continue to move forward,' he said. The India-US defence partnership has strengthened over the last several years and decades, he said. 'There is potential for this partnership to grow further under the India-US COMPACT for the 21st century,' he added, referring to the COMPACT or Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology arrangement that was finalised when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Trump in Washington in February. People familiar with the matter said the Indian side is drawing a distinction between the actions of Trump and the institutionalised relationship between India and the US, which is not limited to trade. At the same time, the Indian side is mindful of the whimsical and unpredictable nature of the American leader's decisions, the people said on condition of anonymity. 'The relationship is not just about trade. It is also about defence, technology, students, people-to-people ties, the mobility of professionals and shared interests in the Indo-Pacific,' one of the people said. 'We have endured worse patches in the past, such as after India's nuclear tests in 1998.' Jaiswal's remarks came a day after commerce minister Piyush Goyal told Parliament that India will take 'all necessary steps' to secure its national interest in the wake of the reciprocal tariff unveiled by Trump. Goyal said the government is examining the implications of the development and is engaged with all stakeholders, including exporters and industry, to assess the situation. In an initial response to Trump's punitive tariff on India, the commerce ministry said India and the US are engaged in negotiations for concluding a 'fair, balanced and mutually beneficial' trade deal and New Delhi remains committed to that objective. At the same time, the government pledged to protect the interests of Indian farmers, entrepreneurs and MSMEs. Trump has unleashed a barrage of social media posts this week, reiterating his claim that India's tariffs are among the world's highest and criticising India for having the 'most strenuous and obnoxious' trade barriers and for buying a majority of its military equipment and energy from Russia. 'I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care,' he said on social media. While announcing a trade deal with Islamabad, Trump mockingly suggested that Pakistan could sell oil to India once the neighbouring country's energy reserves are developed with US assistance. He has also continued repeating his claim that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May, when hostilities erupted after New Delhi launched a military operation to target terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Islamabad in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. The Indian side has said no foreign country had a role in the stopping of military actions. In the context of India-Russia relations, Jaiswal said India's bilateral relationships with various countries 'stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country'. He added: 'India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership.' Jaiswal said the sourcing of India's defence requirements is 'determined solely by our national security imperatives and strategic assessments'. After US and its Western partners slapped wide-ranging sanctions on Russia over invasion of Ukraine, India ramped up purchase of Russian commodities, especially oil and fertilisers. Russia soon displaced Iraq and Saudi Arabia as the main suppliers of crude to India, the world's third largest oil importer.
Time of India
01-08-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Amid criticism, India backs strategic ties with US
India underscored the depth of long-standing ties with the US while defending its relationship with Russia and energy purchases from that country. US President Donald Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio have been critical of India buying oil from Russia. Trump has also been attacking India's trade stance ahead of the US imposing a 25% tariff on the country's goods. "India and the United States share a comprehensive global strategic partnership anchored in shared interests, democratic values, and robust people-to-people ties," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a briefing in the capital on Friday. "This partnership has weathered several transitions and challenges. We remain focused on the substantive agenda that our two countries have committed to and are confident that the relationship will continue to move forward." Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Finance Design Thinking Healthcare Artificial Intelligence MCA Leadership CXO Degree Others Data Science Cybersecurity others Product Management Project Management Digital Marketing healthcare Management Data Analytics Technology PGDM Operations Management Data Science MBA Public Policy Skills you'll gain: Duration: 7 Months S P Jain Institute of Management and Research CERT-SPJIMR Fintech & Blockchain India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 9 Months IIM Calcutta SEPO - IIMC CFO India Starts on undefined Get Details He underscored the military ties between the two countries. "We have a strong defence partnership with the US which has been strengthening over the last several years," Jaiswal said. "There is potential for this partnership to grow further under the India-US COMPACT for the 21st century." This was a reference to the initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump during their February summit in Washington DC--Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology for the 21st Century or COMPACT. This will "drive transformative change across key pillars of cooperation," including defence industry cooperation. However, Jaiswal said that the "sourcing of our defence requirements is determined solely by our national security imperatives and strategic assessments." He didn't mention F-35 fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin that the US wants India to buy. Jaiswal said the relationship with Russia was a longstanding one. "India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership," he said. "Our bilateral relationships with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country." When asked about a report on Indian state-run oil refiners pausing purchases of Russian oil, Jaiswal said, "In securing our energy needs, we are guided by what is on offer in the markets, and by the prevailing global circumstances." Rubio had on Thursday said that India's purchase of oil from Russia is "most certainly a point of irritation" in ties between the two countries. He told Fox Radio that this was helping to sustain Moscow's war effort in Ukraine. "Look, global trade... India is an ally. It's a strategic partner. Like anything in foreign policy, you're not going to align 100% of the time on everything," Rubio said when asked if President Trump was "upset" with India getting a "great portion" of the discounted oil from Russia. "India has huge energy needs and that includes the ability to buy oil and coal and gas and things that it needs to power its economy like every country does, and it buys it from Russia, because Russian oil is sanctioned and cheap and... they're selling it under the global price because of the sanctions. And that, unfortunately, is helping to sustain the Russian war effort," Rubio said.
Hindustan Times
01-08-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
‘India-US ties have weathered several challenges': MEA on Trump's tariff threat
New Delhi: In the face of President Donald Trump's punitive tariffs on Indian goods and criticism of energy and defence purchases from Russia, India on Friday said its ties with the US had overcome several challenges and New Delhi is committed to taking the relationship forward. India and the US share a comprehensive global strategic partnership anchored in shared interests, democratic values and robust people-to-people ties: External affairs ministry spokesperson Responding to the US's 25% reciprocal tariff that becomes effective on August 7 and an unspecified additional penalty for purchasing Russian oil, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly media briefing that India remains focused on the 'substantive agenda' that the two sides have agreed on to drive the relationship. He also pointed to the potential for growing the 'strong defence partnership' with the US. At the same time, Jaiswal defended India's procurement of energy and defence hardware from Russia, saying New Delhi and Moscow have a 'steady and time-tested partnership'. He also made it clear that defence requirements are determined by India's national security imperatives and strategic assessments. 'India and the US share a comprehensive global strategic partnership anchored in shared interests, democratic values and robust people-to-people ties. This partnership has weathered several transitions and challenges,' Jaiswal said in response to several questions regarding Trump's tariff policy. 'We remain focused on the substantive agenda that our two countries have committed to and are confident that the relationship will continue to move forward,' he said. The India-US defence partnership has strengthened over the last several years and decades, he said. 'There is potential for this partnership to grow further under the India-US COMPACT for the 21st century,' he added, referring to the COMPACT or Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology arrangement that was finalised when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Trump in Washington in February. People familiar with the matter said the Indian side is drawing a distinction between the actions of Trump and the institutionalised relationship between India and the US, which is not limited to trade. At the same time, the Indian side is mindful of the whimsical and unpredictable nature of the American leader's decisions, the people said on condition of anonymity. 'The relationship is not just about trade. It is also about defence, technology, students, people-to-people ties, the mobility of professionals and shared interests in the Indo-Pacific,' one of the people said. 'We have endured worse patches in the past, such as after India's nuclear tests in 1998.' Jaiswal's remarks came a day after commerce minister Piyush Goyal told Parliament that India will take 'all necessary steps' to secure its national interest in the wake of the reciprocal tariff unveiled by Trump. Goyal said the government is examining the implications of the development and is engaged with all stakeholders, including exporters and industry, to assess the situation. In an initial response to Trump's punitive tariff on India, the commerce ministry said India and the US are engaged in negotiations for concluding a 'fair, balanced and mutually beneficial' trade deal and New Delhi remains committed to that objective. At the same time, the government pledged to protect the interests of Indian farmers, entrepreneurs and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Trump has unleashed a barrage of social media posts this week, reiterating his claim that India's tariffs are among the world's highest and criticising India for having the 'most strenuous and obnoxious' trade barriers and for buying a majority of its military equipment and energy from Russia. 'I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care,' he said on social media. While announcing a trade deal with Islamabad, Trump mockingly suggested that Pakistan could sell oil to India once the neighbouring country's energy reserves are developed with US assistance. He has also continued repeating his claim that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May, when hostilities erupted after New Delhi launched a military operation to target terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Islamabad in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. The Indian side has said no foreign country had a role in the stopping of military actions. Jaiswal responded to questions on these issues by saying that the sourcing of India's energy needs is 'guided by what is on offer in the markets and what is the prevailing global circumstances'. In the context of India-Russia relations, Jaiswal said India's bilateral relationships with various countries 'stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country'. He added, 'India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership.' Jaiswal said the sourcing of India's defence requirements is 'determined solely by our national security imperatives and strategic assessments'. Shortly after the US and its Western partners slapped wide-ranging sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, India ramped up the purchase of discounted Russian commodities, especially oil and fertilisers. Russia soon displaced Iraq and Saudi Arabia as the main suppliers of crude to India, the world's third largest oil importer. India is currently the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude, and purchased Russian oil worth $50.2 billion in 2024-25. While talking about the 25% punitive tariff on India in a social media post this week, Trump also spoke of imposing a penalty for the purchase of Russian energy and military equipment. He has also threatened to slap tariffs of up to 100% on countries buying Russian oil unless Russia reaches a peace deal with Ukraine by August 7-9. While Russia continues to account for close to 60% of the inventory of India's armed forces, the US has emerged as a key supplier of sophisticated weapon systems over the past two decades. Since 2008, India has contracted for US defence equipment worth at least $24 billion, including transport and maritime surveillance aircraft, maritime and attack helicopters, anti-ship missiles and howitzers.
Daily Maverick
24-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
How South Africa's poor continue paying for the privileges of the rich
It is South Africa's political-economic structure, its 'relations of power', that need transformation, if the objective is to reverse our shameful poverty, unemployment and inequality. This transformation begins with the rejection of what has shaped the fundamentals of our economy since 1994 – neoliberalism. The poor continue to be the constant losers regardless of the specific crisis afflicting the economy at any time. Some 20 years ago, for instance, the collapse of the rand against the US dollar, British pound and the EU's euro was offered as part of the explanation why most people were experiencing economic hardship. Then – as hard as it is to remember or imagine – the opposite happened. The rand began to strengthen, doubling its value against the dollar. But the hardships of most South Africans remained unchanged. Indeed, the very strength of the rand was presented as the cause of growing poverty and unemployment. Without our predilection for producing remedial plans for every problem, I wonder how many people have ever heard of – or remember – AsgiSA, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, launched in February 2006. The initiative was supposed to introduce policies and interventions to achieve sustainable economic growth of 6%, which would halve poverty and unemployment by 2014. No sooner was it announced than the global economic gurus, to whom our government is beholden, warned that too much growth was inflationary and then, as now, inflation was presented as a deadly disorder. Interest rates around the world accordingly began increasing to counter the excessive inflationary growth rate. Following this lead, our Reserve Bank claimed that a growth rate of only 4.1% was sustainable if inflation was to be controlled. Leap into the present and the same pattern persists. South Africa's 2025 Budget shows that only some of the particulars of the pattern have changed. The urgency of economic growth as the means to solving our myriad problems – growth being the only issue on which all members of the GNU agree – was central to the brouhaha over the new national Budget. All the GNU's 10 members claimed that the interests of the poor were primary in either shaping or opposing the first two versions of the Budget. The third and finally agreed version was supposedly based on the same objective, with creating jobs as the main one. The finally agreed Budget, however, still left most South Africans the victims of the same macroeconomic policies accepted by all parliamentary political parties since 1994, notwithstanding the occasional rhetoric of some of them. Under the headline of ' Education and health funding slashed while fuel levy increased ' – despite the appalling state of both education and health – Daily Maverick's Neesa Moodley details the impact of the Budget's austerity impact on additional items such as social grant recipients, the early retirement programme for the public sector, the zero rating of more essential food items, and Home Affairs. That VAT is the most regressive of all taxes didn't deter the ANC from wanting to impose a 2% VAT increase, or inhibit it from still seeing itself as speaking on behalf of 'our people'. Indeed, the wanted VAT increase caused the SACP such internal conflict that it pledged itself to stand against the ANC in the next national election – the municipal one in 2026. But, hedging its bets, the SACP remains loyal to its alliance with the ANC. Neoliberalism, with its standard characteristics – austerity, tax rates for the rich that are untouchable unless being reduced, conservative monetary policies, public debt that is unpayable yet remains both permanent and the primary budget line item, growing inequality and dependence on the global 'market' – remains sacrosanct (for those wishing to know more about my understanding of neoliberalism). There is one standout issue, however, that is permanently free from the austerity cuts and restrictions the government says are unavoidable, if, as it must, it prevents getting into even heavier debt by borrowing money. The Employment Equity Amendment Bill, the Mineral Resources Bill, the R100-billion Transformation Fund and the legally binding BEE legal sector code for the greatly enhanced involvement of black (ie African) lawyers are current examples of this exemption. 'SA is busy intensifying BEE', as the former editor of Business Maverick, Tim Cohen, noted in February 2025. He considered this intensification to be the movement from BEE's first wave to its second and third waves. A commitment to this intensification was a central theme of President Cyril Ramaphosa's keynote address at the Black Business Council's (BBC) Annual Conference on 5 June 2025. 'Transformation', apart from being a constitutional mandate as Ramaphosa reminded the BBC, remains legitimised by its claim to be designed to help 'our people' by the imperative of reducing poverty and unemployment. Transformation rich in reassuring rhetoric The reality is less righteous. It is the African rich who feed off the in-your-face African poverty as the rationale for still more measures to promote their wealth. Then-President Thabo Mbeki, rather than feeling the need to camouflage this reality, made it the key theme of his address to the Black Management Forum's annual conference in December 1999. He declared: 'I will speak only to the question of the challenge of the formation of a black capitalist class, a black bourgeoisie'. Despite such frankness, he still felt the need for euphemism. The implicitly all-inclusive 'black bourgeoisie' being one such euphemism. Yet only some five months earlier, the ANC had reaffirmed, at its 50th Annual Conference, that it had a much narrower understanding of who was black. In practice, as well as selected public use, it meant Africans in particular (Thesis 8 of the National Question in South Africa). This dual meaning of black has become sufficiently common for people to clarify their meaning when black is not used generically to include everyone who isn't white. Hence the term black African. President Ramaphosa's response to the question put to him in Parliament on 27 May 2025 by the leader of the Freedom Front Plus, Corné Mulder, is among the clearest and most comprehensive analyses demonstrating that the Budget was not alone in omitting the needs of poor Africans. Transformation does the same, despite the trillions of rands their poverty legitimises when spent on the creation, consolidation and expansion of the African bourgeoisie. Ramaphosa merits quoting at some length. Although himself using the formula 'black people in general and Africans in particular' in 2017, and, more especially when presenting the ANC's President's Political Report in 2022, he reverted to the more inclusive 'black people' in his answer to Mulder's 2025 Parliamentary question (as he frequently did in his aforementioned address to the BBC, in June 2025): 'I am rather surprised and taken aback when I hear that policies of black economic empowerment militate against the growth of our economy. That, I find quite surprising because I work from the starting point that our economy was held back over many years by the racist policies of the past. 'Black people were brought in as hewers of wood and drawers of water and they were just brought in as labourers. They were not even seen as consumers. They were not seen as active players in the economic landscape of our country.' The reality of apartheid, including the wholesale exclusion of black South Africans from the economy, could not be forgotten, as if it were merely 'a bad dream', Ramaphosa reminded Mulder: 'So I am really baffled, I am baffled by people who still hanker for policies of the past and to have you, Sir, say black economic empowerment is holding our economy back.' Ramaphosa was particularly incensed by the accusation that transformation was the major impediment to achieving the reduction of poverty and unemployment. All his GNU member parties agreed that cutting poverty and unemployment was the sine qua non for the way forward. They further agreed that this couldn't be achieved without economic growth. For him, there is no inconsistency between growth and 'black' wealth: 'Why can't black people be made to own productive aspects of our economy, why can't they be rich as well?' He claimed that both the World Bank and IMF had, in separate reports, agreed with him. Ramaphosa said that both institutions had identified an excessively over-concentrated economy as the roadblock to growth. Ramaphosa's still-intact apartheid mindset selectively equated this unhealthy concentration as being the continuation of apartheid, where the white minority enjoyed state protection of their ownership and management of the major sources of wealth. Given his misunderstanding of 'concentration', he was baffled by the new, sustained and growing fashion of attacking transformation, in both South Africa and the US. His expectation is applause for transformation, for its explicit intention is nothing less than forcing open the bolted doors of white wealth, with the keys still secured in white safes. His apartheid-cemented mindset made him unable to comprehend that, as used by both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (and economists more generally), concentration referred to sector/s of an economy dominated by a small number of very large corporations. These oligopolies, as they are called in standard economics, or monopolies in Marxian terminology, are sufficiently powerful both to set market prices and deter others from becoming competitors. (It seems that some of the established beneficiaries of BEE prefer not having additional competitors created by the continuation of BEE.) In either case, oligopolies are considered to constrain supposedly free markets, which is why most developed economies, including South Africa, have statutory institutions formally mandated to control such anti-competitive behaviours. Provided they don't take this mandate too seriously. If they do, even our (mostly) toothless Competition Commission is lambasted for 'thwarting growth '. This, despite the commission's acceptance of the normalisation of anti-competitive behaviour worldwide and the need for South Africa's corporations to be 'competitive' in markets controlled by much larger corporations than South Africa's large ones. Hence, too, the Treasury's response to pressure from Parliament's Finance Committee to expand the VAT zero-rated food basket. The Treasury explained that zero-rating was a blunt instrument, for it also benefited retailers and distributors who did not pass on the price reductions to consumers. Such additional profiteering was just presented – and accepted – as an unchangeable fact of economies. Capitalism on neoliberal steroids The effects of this modern-day economy (which dominates much of the world) go way beyond the austerity cuts and restrictions of South Africa's current Budget. As argued elsewhere, it is the South African form of neoliberalism that creates and reproduces the very poverty, unemployment and inequality the GNU is committed to reversing. Most of the 187 countries identified by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 2020 as austerity-stricken are committed to GDP-measured growth as the antidote to austerity. South Africa, along with the others, sees the antidote as being an injection of foreign capital into their economies. With the world awash with capital seeking profit-maximising investments – there are about 215 other investment destinations that capital can seek, according to Professor Adrian Saville of the Gordon Institute of Business Science – countries are obliged to be even more 'business-friendly' than their immediate competitors. The World Bank Group's President, Tim Young Kim, alerted governments as far back as 2017 to what this means: 'If the conditions are not right for private investment, we need to work with our partners to de-risk projects, sectors and entire countries.' 'De-risking' means maximising the freedom enjoyed by the capital of would-be investors. In addition to the Competition Commission's (standard) impotence, this is why profit shifting from the Global South continues unabated, despite the $242-trillion known to have been involved for the period 1990-2015 (constant 2010 USD). The global amount is $492-billion per year. A 2022 estimate for South Africa's losses is $329-billion over five decades. The Dennis Davis Tax Commission of 2022 put South Africa's losses at more than R100-billion. The free movement of capital is taken as given by foreign capital. This is why calls to tax the rich in the world's most unequal society can only but fall on deaf ears. This is why we are expected to celebrate when the export of food increases, while at the same time attacking the government – whether or not it's in a GNU formation – for the worsening unaffordability of food at home. This – along with a more generalised poverty and despair – is why some of us cry when mothers sell their children, while others applaud when the mothers and their accomplices are given life sentences. And we know well that the self-imposed restraints on budgets compel even well-meaning governments to increase the cost of petrol, notwithstanding their awareness that this will aggravate hunger and poverty, for the imperative of profit maximising will force businesses to increase their prices. The way forward? With the DA still being labelled a 'white' party, it is easy to dismiss their opposition to race-based laws because they oppose transformation that threatens their apartheid privileges. But, apart from such party-political opportunism, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Willie Aucamp, the DA spokesperson – or most DA members, for that matter – when, in dismissing the anti-transformation accusation, he added: 'We believe that genuine redress must uplift all South Africans and remove the obstacles that continue to exclude millions from economic participation.' Given the reality of 'transformation', as Thabo Mbeki's brother, Moeletsi has noted: 'As the ruling party, the ANC had the role of nation-building. Instead, it has adopted policies that benefited only the African elite and alienated everyone else.' And because this reality is too discomforting for most of the ANC's political leadership and the more specifically business members of the 'black' bourgeoisie, they, too, probably sincerely endorse the sentiments expressed by the ANC's economic transformation subcommittee head, Zuko Godlimpi. Those opposed to transformation, he contended, have 'routinely tried to turn the legal system into their fighting stick against policies aimed at structural transformation. The grammar of this effort changes over time to be about inadequacies of this legislation, but the substance is the same: retain relations of power that privilege the same historically defined group in terms of economic access, employment opportunity, higher education access and overall social upward mobility.' South Africa's social stability, in his assessment, required nothing less than successful transformation. Ramaphosa developed these themes during his address to the BBC. While acknowledging that 'black African' households had experienced a 46% increase in real income between 2006 and 2023, the average income of 'white' households still remained nearly five times greater than African ones and, thus, failed to meet the demographics required by the Employment Equity and related acts. Since the persistence of 'poverty-stricken' Africans in post-apartheid South Africa is the fundamental rationale for African wealth, as expressed as recently as 9 June 2025 by CEO of Business Leadership SA (BLSA) Busisiwe Mavuso, with white-dominated institutions that 'look like outposts of Europe', Ramaphosa's playing with statistics is not surprising. It is to be expected that he would fail to mention that the 46% increase in African income reflected the huge inequality between the African rich and poor, an inequality that plays a major role in making South Africa the world's most unequal society. It is, indeed, most probable that he is not able to acknowledge this reality even to himself. Such a denial would be wholly consistent with the disjuncture between reality and his illusions on display in his glowing report to the BBC on health, education and unemployment. What he and the DA – like all the other parliamentary parties – are most fundamentally not able to accept is that it is South Africa's political-economic structure, its 'relations of power', that need transformation, if the objective is to reverse our shameful poverty, unemployment and inequality. This transformation begins with the rejection of what still remains nameless in Parliament, even though it has shaped the fundamentals of our economy since 1994: neoliberalism (as I've already revealed). While this first step to the DA's 'genuine' transformation remains beyond Parliamentary thinking, this is unlikely to apply to most of you, the readers of this article. After the experience of 31 years of neoliberal practice, it is a tiny step to guarantee its continued failure – and the consequential growing instability in all its many areas in our society. This knowledge is powerful. It makes it possible for us to increase in size sufficient for our voices not only to be heard in Parliament, but to be represented in Parliament. DM
