KennethDS

Laughter takes place at the intersection of sense and nonsense where expectation meets the unexpected

[Nora @Heal_within96]

Somalia 1970s before the US gifted the country with "democracy."

[Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto]

“Even the apartheid regime in South Africa did not dare to say that if a black man kills a white man, he will be executed. But if a white man kills a black man, he will not be. What Israel did…it is exactly that saying that a Palestinian could be sentenced to death penalty, but an Israeli no for the same crime.” -@MustafaBarghou1 on Israel’s new death penalty law.

[History ZAR @HistorySAZAR]

The African Inkspots share their experience with the Pass Laws. Credit: Looking Back/The Schadeberg Company/Jurgen Schadeberg/Claudia Schadeberg/Journeyman TV

[Michael de Villiers @Mikedotcoza]

Orania was established in April 1991, when apartheid was already losing its grip on South Africa. It was founded as a “Volkstaat” to preserve Afrikaner language and culture, largely out of fear of becoming part of a democratic South Africa where people could live and move freely without racial restrictions.

To now claim that Afrikaners need their own self-government because of “140+ racial laws” is therefore absurd. This project existed long before those talking points. This group clearly never intended to fully integrate into the new democratic South Africa from the beginning.

[Jacques Joubert @jfjoubert]

The roll of the dice in apartheid South Africa: Sandra Laing (born 26 November 1955), a South African woman whose life exploded the myth of Afrikaner whiteness and apartheid’s absurd and arbitrary racial classification system. Born to "white" Afrikaner parents but with dark skin and curly hair, she was reclassified as “Coloured” under apartheid laws, tearing her family apart and drawing worldwide attention to the cruelty of racial segregation.

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@elonmusk Native Americans did not survive and they were not multicultural 🤷🏿‍♂️

Not that I expected a white South African to Understand.

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@Saxon_African Yes, and the big question is, Why don't you go back to Zimbabwe?

[Sizwe SikaMusi @SizweLo]

In July 2020, South Africa sent a Letter of Intent to the IMF signed by Tito Mboweni and Lesetja Kganyago.

Three months later, South Africa then launched Operation Vulindlela. This was not a coincidence.

According to the IMF, “Letter Of Intent are prepared by the member country. They describe the policies that a country intends to implement in the context of its request for financial support from the IMF.”

In its letter of intent, the South African government explicitly promised to accelerate “structural reforms” to network industries (power, rail, ports). South Africa’s LOI was a formal “policy promise” that South Africa used to secure a $4.3 billion loan. The LOI explicitly outlined the “structural reforms” and “fiscal consolidation” that the government committed to to ensure debt sustainability.

Among the usual “fiscal consolidation” promises, South Africa undertook to remove regulatory hurdles in the labour sector. In simple terms, the government promised the IMF that it would make it easier for companies to hire and fire employees.

The LOI explicitly mentioned that specific reform commitments would be detailed in the October 2020 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. This is exactly when Operation Vulindlela was launched to serve as the “delivery unit” for these very promises. The LOI was the blueprint, and Operation Vulindlela became the hammer used to implement it.

The IMF doesn’t just hand over cash; they need to see a delivery mechanism. Operation Vulindlela was that mechanism, a specialised unit inside the Presidency and National Treasury, designed to bypass bureaucratic red tape and force the unbundling of Eskom and Transnet.

While the South African government often frames Operation Vulindlela as a homegrown plan, the reality is that the IMF acts like a credit rating agency for the world. So, by launching Operation Vulindlela, South Africa was sending a signal to global markets that “We are doing exactly what the IMF wants, so please keep lending us money at lower interest rates.”

Operation Vulindlela was the “security deposit” South Africa had to pay to prove it was serious about shifting from a state-led economy to the “User-Pays” private model you’ve identified.

Since South Africa’s LOI was sent with the promise to unbundle Transnet, private companies now run freight trains on state tracks for a “fee,” while the state pays for the track maintenance.

The unbundling of state-owned enterprises is a fundamental shift toward privatisation and a “user-pays” model that benefits private capital while reducing state capacity.

As pledged in the LOI, electricity prices have risen to “cost-reflective” levels, ensuring private solar/wind farms can make a profit.

And of course, the austerity which promised that the public wage bill would be squeezed to pay the interest on the loan.

Keeping the public wage bill suppressed does not only mean not raising salaries of already employed civil servants, but also not hiring nurses, teachers or doctors even when there’s a critical need.

An often-made argument is that South Africa’s fiscal challenges were real and preceded the IMF loan. However, the specific remedies of marketisation, cost-reflective pricing, and wage bill suppression align explicitly with a particular ideological framework that the IMF has historically promoted.

But here’s a much more interesting aspect of this whole issue:

The IMF loan was under the Rapid Financing Instrument, which has no traditional structural conditionalities. Which means that, unlike a full-fledged programme, the RFI only required a commitment to use the funds transparently and to “endeavour” to pursue policies to address the COVID-19 crisis.

This means that the LOI was South Africa’s self-chosen path, which deployed COVID-19 as political cover to implement a preset neoliberal privatisation agenda.

We know this through a 2019 National Treasury paper that advocated for market-oriented reforms, but was consistently blocked by factions in the ANC, its alliance partners, and the SOEs themselves.

The paper titled “Economic transformation, inclusive growth, and competitiveness: Towards an Economic Strategy for South Africa” outlined the framework for “modernising” transport, energy, water, and communications industries and was referenced in the 2019 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. The paper laid out the reform agenda that would later be operationalised through Operation Vulindlela in October 2020.

In essence, the National Treasury had long decided to marketise the country’s key strategic industries and used COVID-19 as a smokescreen to push its agenda through.

This is not a conspiracy theory. The Operation Vulindlela document clearly states that the policy “[Focuses] on reforms that are supported by government policy but which have been delayed or blocked in the past.”

Vulindlela was explicitly framed as a delivery unit to implement reforms that Treasury had been unable to push through politically.

More to the point, Vulindlela’s institutional design matters: It was located in the Presidency and National Treasury, which made it unaccountable to Parliament in the way line departments are.

Then there's the mandate to remove blockages, which meant overruling departments, SOEs, unions, and alliance partners.
This is a well-known IMF/World Bank governance strategy when democratic or coalition politics obstruct an agenda.

The key takeaway here is that the IMF did not force South Africa to do this. South Africa used the IMF to force South Africa to do this, using COVID to neutralise mass resistance.

To be clear, the economic problems facing South Africa are legitimate, but the concern is that the Treasury and the Presidency chose marketisation as the only credible response and ruled out labour, public investment, and developmental-state alternatives in advance.

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@matinyarare @ErnstRoets Learn to stay out of South African issues

[Don Salmon @dijoni]

Thank you, Dr. King daughter for calling out Donald Trump propaganda and lies about the civil rights.

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

How Israel's education system brainwashes their children

Former Israeli student & teacher, Hadas Emma Kedar, reveals truth: Israel's education system is a genocide factory. They teach children to deny Palestinians exist, twist history, weaponize Auschwitz to justify apartheid

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@rodcampsbay @USEmbassySA 😂🤣😂🤣😂You are trying too hard baba

[Michael de Villiers @Mikedotcoza]

Elon Musk: “I started from nothing”.
His Dad: ⬇️

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@LCabonena Why are you speaking on their behalf?

Let’s start there.

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@nubian6 @Aduradara61049 @grok I was just making sure I heard you correctly 🤣😂🤣😂

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@Saxon_African @PippaCrerar Your opinion is not a truth, it's just an uninformed opinion. 😂

[History ZAR @HistorySAZAR]

Durant Sihlali (1935 - 2004) was a South African artist. He was born in Germiston. He studied art at the Moroko Chiawelo Centre from 1950 to 1953. From 1953 to 1958 he studied under Cecil Skotnes at the Polly Street Art Centre & was Head of Fine Arts at the Federated Union of Black Artists (Fuba) from 1983 until 2004. He exhibited in Nuremberg, Athens, and Palermo. Image Source: Arena Holdings/Wikipedia

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@CapePatriotic You are desperate and stupid

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@grok @nubian6 @Aduradara61049 Libido?

[KennethDS @Majocci]

@nubian6 @Aduradara61049 @grok?