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It is on the seemingly small events that history turns. Yesterday, the former DPE portfolio committee chairperson Vytjie Mentor posted onto Facebook that the Guptas offered her a Ministerial job – provided she give them the air route between SA and India. The same alleged “state capture” experience of Deputy Finance minister Mcebisi Jonas in November.
Her post may well prove transformational. Like Davos 1992. Nelson Mandela arrived at the Swiss Alpine resort as a devotee of socialist ideals; a believer in economic policies applied so disastrously in the past couple decades by Venezuela’s Chavez and Argentina’s Kirchner.
He refused to listen to hear Western leaders. But as fate would have it, also in Davos that year was the newly appointed Prime Minister of Vietnam who was to become that country’s great economic reformer, Vo Van Kiet. It was he who convinced Mandela that the ideas they had all believed so passionately lead to poverty and pain.
Mandela came home a changed man. The only pity is his party never followed through. Over the next 22 years, in US Dollars Vietnamese per capita wealth has risen at a compound growth rate of 12.8% a year. South Africa’s GDP per capita has posted compound growth of a modest 2.7%. As Pravin Gordhan keeps telling us, much work remains.
From Biznews community member Ben Tonkin
" Well, the fanatics have got their way and Chris Hart has resigned. I can’t for the life of me see what these racist fanatics have achieved, other than to show that government and others bow down to the wishes of the rabble. It hasn’t affected Chris Hart who is certainly not sitting at home, unemployed and whinging about his lot on life. He is merely taking on new challenges. I wish him well."
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