|
Quarterly Review
April 2020 – June 2020
|
|
FMF Projects
The FMF’s projects for 2020 include: A dedicated focus on the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, Consumer rights, Economic freedom / Economic growth, Financial sector, Healthcare, Jobs creation / Labour, Land reform / property rights (with a particular focus on #EWC – Expropriation Without Compensation), Rule of Law, Transformation, as well as ad hoc issues as they arise.
|
|
Media
The FMF works hard to increase its media coverage and reach as wide an audience as possible with its message about the benefits of economic freedom, growth and the rule of law.
320 ARTICLES that quote or mention the FMF or originate from interviews or media releases or were written specifically for the media or the FMF’s website were published this quarter. See projects below for more information.
40 INTERVIEWS this quarter on radio and TV.
12 MEDIA RELEASES this quarter. See projects below for more information.
The FMF is conscious of the power of SOCIAL MEDIA and we are working hard to reach more people via our website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube offerings.
Twitter: 5,819 followers – up from 5,341 in previous quarter
Facebook: 6,168 followers – up from 5,706 in previous quarter
YouTube: 493 videos; 3,837 subscribers – up from 3,466 in previous quarter; 417,609 views – up from 383,409 in previous quarter
Podcasts
FMF researchers Martin van Staden, Mpiyakhe Dhlamini, Jacques Jonker and Chris Hattingh continue to do weekly vlogs and podcasts on a wide range of topics. In addition to the weekly ‘Free Marketeers’ vlog which features three of them discussing topics together, they often also do weekly podcasts on topics of their own choosing. All podcasts can be found on the FMF’s YouTube channel.
For the duration of the COVID-19 lockdown, Chris Hattingh hosted various discussions with guests on a range of issues pertaining to the COVID-19 lockdown. Here are a few highlights:
Videos
Watch these two golden oldies recently digitised and uploaded to our YouTube channel:
South Africa: The solution
A constitution worth fighting for
FMF history series
We have begun the mammoth task of unearthing and presenting our 43-year history.
If you would like to know more, why not begin by dipping into our under-construction timeline.
We have digitised our photographs and added them to our website beginning with our 1977 (re)inauguration – see galleries.
We have digitised ancient, dusty VHS tapes and uploaded them to our YouTube channel here. A few noteworthy standouts include Leon Louw’s presentations, a prelude to the writing of South African: The Solution. There are 6 videos in this 1985 series beginning with HISTORY SERIES South Africa: The Solution 1 of 6. See also our 1986 privatisation conference: HISTORY SERIES Privatisation conference 1986 1 of 3 and our 1989 consumer conference: HISTORY SERIES Consumer power conference 1989 1 of 5.
If you have any photographs or tales from FMF’s past, we would welcome you sharing them with us.
Cartoons
 
Previous cartoons published by FMF can be viewed here.
|
|
Projects (note: all articles, media releases and submissions are available on the FMF website)
|
|
Covid-19 2020 Lockdown
The coronavirus epidemic swept the world, and South Africa, in early 2020.
The FMF recognised the serious threat which came with the lockdown; a threat aimed at the country’s hard-won civil liberties after the dawn of democracy in 1994. Amongst the work that the FMF engaged in were: research, reports, articles, media releases, TV and radio interviews, podcasts with guests, extensive social media engagement, consultations with law firms on implications for peoples’ rights, and more. The FMF drew attention to the economic and legal implications of the government-imposed lockdown, and further advocated for policies which would boost growth in post-epidemic South Africa.
Articles
- Structural reform is necessary to repay the costs of the lockdown by Sindile Vabaza
- Time in lockdown has been wasted by Chris Hattingh
- Veiled threats against free speech are an attack on democracy by Riaan Salie
- A plea to free everyone and end lockdown by Eustace Davie
- Racialism in law is incompatible with the Rule of Law by Jacques Jonker
- The rule of law was undermined and the consequences are showing by Jacques Jonker
- COVID-19 lockdown is exacerbating SA's economic woes by Chris Hattingh
- South Africa's lockdown is especially severe by Chris Hattingh
- Defending and advancing liberalism in South Africa after Covid-19 by Martin van Staden
- The lockdown is not prima facie lawful by Robert Vivian
- End lockdown - Free our children and grandchildren! by Eustace Davie
- To tackle COVID-19 we need trade collaboration and innovation by Jasson Urbach
- Variety is life, beware of the uniformity emerging from the pandemic by James Peron
- 'Flattening the curve' was intended for the virus, not the economy by Chris Hattingh
- Lockdown, tyranny and the rule of law by Rex van Schalkwyk
- A wealth tax is not the kind of structural reform SA needs by Chris Hattingh
- Covid-19: Let’s abandon the fake news paranoia by Martin van Staden
- South Africa’s coronavirus repression signals worse to come by Jasson Urbach and Richard Tren
- SA needs real structural reform, not more jurists and philosophers by Martin van Staden
- Civil liberties are being threatened accompanied by thunderous applause by Jacques Jonker
- How Covid-19 has shattered the lives of self-employed South Africans by Erik Peers
- A call for strengthened private and public healthcare systems in time of COVID-19 by Unathi Kwaza
- SA tourism on the ropes with little help from government by Neil Emerick
- Small businesses hit hard by national lockdown by Unathi Kwaza
- Government should beware of inadvertently taking lives in its attempt to save them by Jacques Jonker
- Post-Covid-19 SA will need a natural ‘stimulus package’ by Sindile Vabaza
- Right now it is overkill to require network providers to infringe our right to privacy by Martin van Staden
- Comply with the lockdown, but don’t judge those who don’t by Martin van Staden
- Is locked-down SA a frog in the warming Covid-19 pot? by Rex van Schalkwyk
- COVID-19: Consider the unintended consequences of the lockdown by Chris Hattingh
- Staat bly onderhewig aan die Grondwet en oppergesag van die reg by Jacques Jonker
- Die COVID-19-afsondering: juridies en prakties gedoem by Martin van Staden
Media releases
- Emergency Budget: Half of all revenue will go to public sector workers for "the important work (they) do"
- Minister Tito Mboweni needs to go further than mere zero-based budgeting
- Informal traders gather in defiance of Lockdown ahead of civil disobedience campaign.
- Tax Freedom Day comes early in 2020, but, thanks to Lockdown, this is not good news.
- World Intellectual Property Day: IP More Important Than Ever In The Age Of COVID-19
- Past government policy wrecked the economy. Change is essential.
- Public policy experts: Lockdown/COVID-19 presents an opportunity for reform
- There is no uncertainty about the economic disaster caused by the lockdown
- New report: Constitutional validity of coronavirus lockdown regulations is disputable
- Beware benign interpretation of government power in times of crisis
- Government must not devastate the informal sector
CEO Statements
- On the declaration of the illegality of lockdown regulations
- From which planet our lockdown tobacco law?
|
|
Consumer Rights
Far-reaching health controls with severe implications for consumers have been implemented or are under consideration. What is targeted? Products of greatest significance include tobacco, liquor, salt, sugar, traditional and faith healing, alternative medicines, baby food and junk food.
Articles
- Prohibition and paternalism are always wrong, especially in a pandemic by Martin van Staden
|
|
Economic Freedom / Growth
The FMF is a co-publisher of the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index with Canadian based think tank Fraser Institute. The index, published annually, measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom. The foundations of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete and security of privately owned property. The findings in the report unambiguously support the fact that economic freedom is strongly related to prosperity and growth; countries that are economically free tend to grow faster and be more prosperous.
Articles
- Mboweni’s national budget shows folly of a command economy by Garth Zietsman
- From housing to education, this is what SAA's restructuring could buy for South Africans by Jacques Jonker
- High data prices? Don’t blame Vodacom and MTN by Martin van Staden
- The moral case for inheritance: Responding to Professor Pierre de Vos by Jacques Jonker
- Steps necessary to revitalise and create long term growth in the South African by Rob Jeffrey
- Letter: Tax Freedom Day and a government with total say by Garth Zietsman
- Moody’s should not be made the scapegoat for government’s failures by Jacques Jonker
Media releases
- Free Market Foundation concerned about deterioration of freedom in Hong Kong
Panel discussion
On 04 June, Martin van Staden participated in a debate hosted by Cornerstone Institute, about whether internet access is (or should be considered) a human right. His fellow panellists included the Chief Executive Officer of the South African Human Rights Commissioner, Adv Tseliso Thipanyane. Martin warned that while internet access is vital in a digitised world, we devalue the notion of human rights by continuously adding more ‘rights’ when it is politically convenient, and also warned that South Africa is in no position to afford government rolling out internet access to everyone.
You can watch the discussion here.
Atlas Network Africa Liberty Forum 2020
The annual Africa Liberty Forum took place, like so many other events this year, online.
Here are the discussions in which FMF representatives took part:
|
|
Financial Sector
The purpose of the FMF’s Finance Policy Unit is to promote the application of free market principles to financial markets. Current actions continue to focus on the “twin peaks” regulation of which the Financial Sector Regulation (FSR) Act is the architecture, and the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act.
Articles
- Government stimulus has not worked, let’s try something else by Mpiyakhe Dhlamini
|
|
Healthcare
The FMF’s Health Policy Unit (HPU) contends and persistently provides evidence that in all sectors of the economy, free, open markets with competitive private enterprises serve consumer needs best. For the indigent, it would be better for government to purchase higher quality healthcare at a lower cost from the private sector than to provide the service itself. The HPU argues that patients are harmed when government dictates to healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies and other firms in the healthcare industry how to manage their affairs, or at what prices they should sell their products and services. The HPU’s mission is to increase access to high quality healthcare for all South Africans.
FMF solutions to healthcare for the indigent
The FMF’s alternative solutions to improved health care for all include:
- Privatising the provision of health care – via giveaways of public hospitals to those who work in them or sales to those who wish to buy them
- Financing health care for the poor – preferably via state-sponsored vouchers, which the indigent can spend where they choose
- Encouraging more private hospitals by deregulating the industry and eliminating Certificates of Need
- Reducing prices and increasing health care quality through increased competition
- Training more doctors and nurses (the number of doctors is limited to 1,300 a year; this number has remained the same since the 1970s despite increases in the population and the disease burden)
- Allowing the private sector to train doctors and nurses
- Encouraging income-producing medical tourism
- Retaining skilled South Africans and attracting others by removing the limit on skilled foreign doctors
- Deregulating medical schemes so they can offer their clients exactly what they want
- Deregulating pharmacies
- Removing price controls, which send mixed messages to the industry
- Speeding up registration of clinical trials
- Giving those who pay for their own health care a tax deduction
- Allowing low cost insurance options
Articles
- Lessons from Spain: Covid-19 exposed the inefficiency of a National Health Service by Roxana Nicula
- Nationalising healthcare to save lives in SA, a disastrous consideration by Jasson Urbach
- Scrapping private health cover a violation of bill of rights by Jasson Urbach
|
|
Jobs Creation / Labour
South Africa has an unacceptably high and rising level of unemployment. For government to achieve its stated objective of reducing unemployment and stimulating growth, it must urgently address labour market policies and laws that exacerbate unemployment. A significant part of our current work involves educating the public about the consequences of adopting a National Minimum Wage (NMW). There are currently an estimated 9.4 million unemployed – a NMW makes it that much harder for these individuals to climb onto the first rung of the economic ladder.
Articles
- Opinion: Defend the dignity and freedom of employees and the jobless by Martin van Staden and Zakhele Mthembu
|
|
Land Reform
FMF believes that secure property rights represent one of the most important requirements for the protection of both economic freedom and civil liberties. FMF is very concerned about recent proposals to amend the property rights clause in the Constitution. FMF proposes that:
- All black occupied council-owned urban plots be converted to full ownership (“freehold”) – FMF is working with Ngwathe municipality (Parys, Free State) to convert 20,000 plots to full freehold.
- Superfluous government land be redistributed to the victims of apartheid as a substantial once-off compensation.
- Pre-emptive clauses be removed from existing and future RDP titles.
- In tribal areas, communities be allowed to grant private title over homesteads while maintaining communal rights over arable land.
- The Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act, 1970 be repealed to make it easier for poor individuals to finance smaller, more affordable plots of land.
Khaya Lam (My Home) Land Reform Project
Khaya Lam is an FMF initiative that seeks to reverse the evils of apartheid. FMF Executive Director, Leon Louw, notes: “Black land deprivation was probably the single worst element of apartheid. Since apartheid ended, little has changed. In South Africa today there are still around 5 million black families living as tenants or without ownership rights in houses they have lived in for generations. There has been no systematic conversion of these “council owned” and “traditional community” properties to full unrestricted ownership. The prospects for economic upliftment throughout South Africa through the Khaya Lam national property titling project are exciting and immense”.
Under the project management of Perry Feldman, the FMF’s Khaya Lam project is gaining momentum. In addition to Ngwathe (FMF’s pilot project), FMF is now working in Grabouw, Stellenbosch, Graaff-Reinet, Barkly West, Viljoenskroon, Alexandra, Thanda and Cape Town (Hout Bay, Vukuzenzele, Hillview).
Khaya Lam: Brief progress report
The COVID-19 lockdown meant the postponement of planned title deed ceremonies. These will be held as soon as circumstances allow. In the interim the Khaya Lam team is hard at work engaging with various municipalities to keep on developing relationships. Herewith a few highlights of the previous 3 months’ work.
- We have signed an MOU with Kannaland (Ladysmith).
- George Municipality is in the process of finalising an MOU with the FMF. It has been a rapid process thus far.
- The projects in Bardale (Cape Town) and Worcester are proceeding. We will have almost 1,400 transfers due for submission very soon.
- Through the initiative of Betterbond, Khaya Lam has been nominated as the beneficiary of the RealNet Trust. When property trading starts again funds will accumulate. The initiative is starting in Bloemfontein. It is an exciting development.
- The Acting MM of Moqhaka (Kroonstad) has taken the Khaya Lam project under her wing.
- The memo regarding the raising of the threshold for deceased estates is on the Minister’s desk. It will still need Parliamentary approval.
- A project is being put together in the Queenstown area with theAffordable Housing Centre and a representative of AgriSA to address titling for township dwellers and emergent farmers.
Change a family’s life for the better today
If you would like to sponsor a title deed at just R2,500 (or a part title deed), please email chrishattingh@fmfsa.org or do so directly through our website here.
PLEASE NOTE: We have a sponsor who donates just R200 per month toward Khaya Lam. His monthly contribution has so far sponsored 6 title deeds, contributing a whopping R600,000 into the economy. And another who sponsors one title deed per month. Why not join them?
Upward Globility: Whose Land is it Anyway? | South Africa
Upward Globility, hosted by Australian traveller Vale Sloane, focuses on stories of Atlas Network partners that are working to create prosperity for all by supporting local opportunities for entrepreneurship, education, and community growth.
In South Africa, the legacy of apartheid has left millions of families without the legal rights to the land they live on. In the first episode, Sloane travelled to South Africa to learn about the FMF’s Khaya Lam Project.
“Protection of property is sacrosanct and at the core of individual liberty and freedom,” said Temba Nolutshungu. Khaya Lam, which means “my home” in the local Xhosa language, aspires to help more than 20 million South Africans make home ownership a reality by securing fully-tradable freehold title to the properties they currently occupy.
You can watch the full video here.
An appeal to Ronald Lamola, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services
Appeal to raise the amounts for the purposes of Section 18(3) of the Administration of Estates Act, 1965 (Act no. 66 of 1965)
As a group of concerned civil society organisations working closely with some of the most marginalised communities in South Africa, we urgently appealed to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services to increase the threshold for “Section 18(3) Estates”. The threshold was last raised to its current level of R250,000 in 2014 (Government Gazette no. 38238) and has therefore not been adjusted to compensate for property price inflation and other market related factors that have served to increase the value of properties.
To read the full letter click here.
Articles
- Letter: David Rakgase’s farm victory good news by Chris Hattingh
- SA must look at the many horrific results of land expropriation without compensation by Tom Palmer
- Lessons from Venezuela: Implosion started with land grabs by Professor Andrés F Guevara B
- Land expropriation without compensation is an illusion that cannot lead to a better life by Riaan Salie
|
Rule of law
The Rule of Law is a Founding Provision of South Africa’s Constitution but this potentially powerful brake on the executive branch of government has not been playing its proper deterring role. A likely reason for this is that most South Africans do not have an adequate understanding of the true meaning of the rule of law.
There were 2 rule of law presentations at the FMF’s EWC conference.
These can be viewed here and here.
10 imperatives of the Rule of Law
The Rule of Law Project formulated the following 10 imperatives of the Rule of Law.
- All law must be clear, predictable, accessible, not contradictory, and shall not have retrospective effect.
- All legislation that makes provision for discretionary powers, must also incorporate the objective criteria by which those powers are to be exercised. The enabling legislation must, in addition, stipulate the purpose or purposes for which the powers may be exercised.
- All law must apply the principle of equality before the law.
- All law must be applied fairly, impartially, and without fear, favour or prejudice.
- The sole legitimate authority for making substantive law rests with the legislature, which authority shall not be delegated to any other entity.
- No law shall have the aim or the effect of circumventing the final authority of the courts.
- No one may be deprived of or have their property expropriated, except if done with due process for the public interest, and in exchange for market-related, fair and just compensation.
- The law shall afford adequate protection of classical individual rights.
- All law must comply with the overriding principle of reasonableness, which comprehends rationality, proportionality, and effectiveness.
- The legislature and organs of state shall observe due process in the rational exercise of their authority.
Copyright Amendment Bill
The FMF, in cooperation with international partners, has warned against the adoption of the latest iteration of the Copyright Amendment Bill for years. The FMF has hosted conferences, led international coalitions, and provided sustained media commentary on the bill, which no doubt has had an effect on President Ramaphosa’s lack of haste in signing it into law. In June 2020, the President formally refused to sign it, citing constitutional concerns, and referred it back to Parliament for reconsideration. The FMF will continue its campaign against the bill until its flaws are substantially rectified, or it is abandoned entirely.
Read more about the latest developments here.
Articles
- Copyright Amendment Bill – public participation shambles! by Martin van Staden
- We should talk about civil disobedience by Martin van Staden
- Marcuse, micro-aggressions and the right to be not offended by Rex van Schalkwyk
- Copyright Amendment Bill shamble illustrates South Africa’s public participation problem by Martin van Staden
Submissions
- Submission on 2020 annual review of the Constitution
- Submission on Ease of Doing Business Bill
|
|
Transformation
Some argue that freedom from apartheid has not made a substantial impact on black advancement. Others argue that for blacks to succeed they need government assistance through Reconstruction and Development Policies and Black Economic Empowerment legislation. Still others are of the view that economic freedom and growth, the development of a strong legal framework, and good infrastructure and security, are all that is required for the realisation of human potential.
Articles
- We need government, but we need civil society even more by James Peron
- Beware the funding decisions of government, the youth will pay by Chris Hattingh
- Pandemics are costly and destructive, no matter what we do by James Peron
|
|
| Contact Us |
|
TEL +27 11 884 0270 | FAX +27 11 884 5672 | EMAIL fmf@mweb.co.za
PO Box 4056, Cramerview 2060 | Block 5, Bryanston Gate, 170 Curzon Road, Bryanston |
|
Click here to unsubscribe from future emails
##Unsubscribe##
|
|
|
|