FUTURE TRENDS AND INFLUENCES, BY JEAN-PIERRE MURRAY-KLINE (FEBRUARY 2023)

A similar scenario might roll out for our mines, with an increase demand for copper, cobalt, diamonds, manganese, nickel, platinum, palladium, gold, iron ore, tungsten, uranium, vanadium and zinc, all raw materials Africa can offer.

As investment arrives on local soil, we will see a hastened improvement in infrastructure and employment. Unfortunately speed is less important than momentum for an economy. We have all seen those ghost towns after a mine shuts down, or know of those once ‘all good to do plans’ by investors to continue to support and maintain a community, and then overnight they disappear! If you don’t understand the level of the threat here, I implore you to Google two things: ‘towns abandoned by businesses and ‘towns abandoned by international investors in Africa’. There is plenty of hit and run evidence.

Africa needs to maintain its own momentum and this requires local leadership that understands re-investment and controlling the conditions of trade is the difference between a quick buck or long term wealth.

Many African currencies lost substantial value against the US dollar during 2022, and it is expected that the exchange rate weakness will continue into 2023. What is important is keeping money and value in circulation within Africa, be it in brick and mortar, skills, produce or infrastructure. Whatever we spend on, it must be local, and shift us in the direction of independence. I am excited to see the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and South Africa’s large Redstone concentrated solar power plant come online soon. If Africa can succeed with interstate trade, cut out red tape, and stop supporting an enabling environment for kickbacks and corruption only good things can happen.

On the move.

The ‘great migration and immigration’ will in part be egged on by Climate Change and extreme weather forces, but also trends like urbanization and automation.

Families will move to seek out safer places to live and better opportunities for education, work, liberties and freedoms. Africans have spent decades sharing their displeasure of people from other continents, and rightfully so, but it is safe to say there have been just as many conflicts, if not more in the last few decades, between Africans only. Xenophobia and Racism are incredibly harmful forces.

Pain has to be felt and people need to be able to express themselves. Millions in Africa live with residual hurt and damages from decades of abuse which came in a variety of sorts. The recourse has sometimes turned into retribution and this is unfortunately energy utilized in a futile manner.

Africans need to be able to share Africa, while insisting on reciprocated respect and returns from the Global market. We must do this without demanding anything more from our children, and avoid at all costs any expectation that they carry baggage we brought home from the past. We need to understand their load is going to be much heavier than our own, and they will need to face challenges we cannot begin to imagine, and certainly never yet experienced in humanities history. The new Africa must become independent of the past, self-sufficient, no longer reliant on Super Powers.

The Judiciary and the office of the Public Protector were others I had on this shortlist, but I have removed for reasons to be unpacked in another article.

If SARS is unable to collect enough tax from its dwindling tax base to fund the inordinate amount of work required to fix South Africa, service our loans and educate and medicate our citizens, it will all fall apart. Until the current ruling party are removed our trajectory will not change at the pace we need it to. The ANC under ‘Cyril’s long game’ will be remembered by me as the ‘too little too late government’, and Cyril is probably the last President we will see from the ANC for some time.

It is sad how far the ANC has fallen, but allegiance to any political party can become counter constructive, with South Africa being a prime example.

After the next elections South Africa will move into an era of coalition’s and turmoil, which will eventually end with three or four equally (more or less) sized parties (and several many smaller ones and Independents) in Parliament. Thankfully this is what is needed and will ensure oversight that redirects money away from government employees and back to service delivery for all South Africans. The sooner we realize it’s more important to have a Parliament that represents everyone than a political party, the better for all.

A major risk is if voters continue to stay at home, or there is a rigging of the votes. Both these concerns are well within the realm of probability and we must be extra vigilant of these threats.

South Africa has a political problem, which is the foundation to just about every single other major problem: the electricity crisis, housing, unemployment, transnet, corruption, education, health, infrastructure, public transport, financial inequality and so forth and so on. Voters who have voted for a majority party that puts their needs and that of their party first, and those who have not voted at all, and every good person who has stopped fighting abuse of tax and liberties are all responsible for enabling ‘this situation’. ‘Business’ has been especially complacent. Labour unions, the CCMA, NCC, SAPS and Crime Intelligence, are just five of the many other influences in South Africa I could mentioned that we need to keep an eye on.

With so many ‘inquiries’ and ‘committees’ taking too long to investigate and not enough people held accountable, trust has been diminished. Over time, we have become despondent. Thousands of people rely on employment by the State and millions on State handouts. The culture today is to demand government maintain our continued dependency on them, and hope they will resolve the issues at hand. The answer is not with Government, but with you and I. I have scenario planned just about every problem and in every instance the path to the most efficient resolution is to bypass government entirely and endorse business and communities.

For success, each home and business needs a Change Champion, who mobilizes their community and uses civil and where necessary legal action to reduce State interference or any other bureaucratic red tape.

The number one priority has to be education. If we can ‘fix’ education and ensure we have a ‘re-education’ system in place very soon, it means the next generation of matrics and those still in the job market then will all be ready for the future, automation, Global Warming, the metaverse, and sustainable and ethical living and business. That generation will be able to juggle multiple types of careers and many will be entrepreneurs. Employment will drop to insignificant levels. Social and economic inequality will be mitigated and racism will diminish. There will be less crime. Less abuse and corruption. There will be fewer SOEs (failed or otherwise). We will take care of our environment and continue to plan for our future.

Our children will never propose to spend 22 million on a flag or 1 billion on a sports team from another land.