Hane

Arsenal. Pirates. Politics.

[Hane @LesediJohane]

If this happens, Madrid will go trophyless again

[Mario Cortegana @MarioCortegana]

⚡️Barcelona exploring a deal to sign Manchester City midfielder Rodri Hernandez
➕Player understood to be appealed by the project based on the fit with their footballing style & the dressing room
➕Real Madrid still there
@polballus
@TheAthleticFC
https://t.co/RT9ZyowMFP

[Hane @LesediJohane]

Kepa can’t be the 2nd choice keeper.

[Spike⚡ @SpikeTweets_14]

Kepa trying to bring his value to zero so that he could remain at the club

[Hane @LesediJohane]

That was Arteta’s main target😭😭😭

[cmbftbl @cmbftbl]

Josh Kroenke sitting down with Arteta after Vini Jr saga and hearing "Nico Williams" again

[Monts BSB🇯🇲 @montszzz]

Arsenal going yet another year with Martinelli starting LW

[Hane @LesediJohane]

Madrid renewal announcement

[now.arsenal @now_arsenaI]

🚨BREAKING: Vinicius Junior has deleted all of his Instagram posts and removed his profile picture.

Something big is coming…

[Hane @LesediJohane]

I think he���ll stay but it won’t make sense and it won’t work when there’s Mbappe who’s the main man and the face of Real Madrid.

Whilst at Arsenal he’ll be paid well even more than Mbappe, become the face of the club and the league.

[David Ornstein @David_Ornstein]

🚨 Real Madrid raise contract offer to Vinicius Junior. Proposal said to reflect 26yo’s importance to #RMFC & project. Decision time for Brazil int’l - renewal, await free agency next summer (club want to avoid) or pursue Arsenal opportunity @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/WvftHt6y84

[Gen Jean-Jacques Dessalines @MxolisiBob]

These people are in China begging for windmills and solar panels yet taking high-speed railways built with coal or nuclear power and require those sources of electricity to run 24 hrs and 365 days

[Spike⚡ @SpikeTweets_14]

GuimaRice midfield

[Thendo Muloiwa @MuloiwaThendo]

Congratulations but 1 unit of electricity currently goes from R3.20 to R4.60+. We can't live like this.

[ChrisExcel @ChrisExcel102]

My Goat Jacob Zuma wanna make sure before he dies his children are sorted and he’s shameless about it…. 😭😭😭

[Hane @LesediJohane]

Those twins are too chaotic man🤣🤣🤣. They are collapsing Jacob Zuma’s political project

[SABC News @SABCNews]

BREAKING NEWS | MK Party announces raft of leadership changes, including Dr John Hlophe removed as 1st Deputy President and replaced by Duduzane Zuma.

[BusinessTech @BusinessTechSA]

Anglo American is discussing a deal worth about R16.4 billion to sell its De Beers diamond business, just a fraction of what the one-time diamond monopoly was once worth.
https://t.co/kooA5KesNn

[Sizwe SikaMusi @SizweLo]

Dr Pali Lehohla says South Africa’s economy should be 3x what it is, but the government is too stupid, corrupt and greedy.

Dr Lehohla’s assessment resonate with many people because because it presents a straightforward diagnosis that if you simply root out corruption and adopt better ideas, the potential of the economy will be unlocked.

By saying that it’s just stupidity, corruption and lack of “imagination”, Dr Lehohla appears to disregard how South Africa’s economy is structured.

For starters, South Africa’s policy strategy, particularly since 1996 and especially in 2000 with the introduction of inflation-targeting, has relied heavily on attracting foreign portfolio flows to cover its chronic current account deficit.

This is what has largely kept South Africa as Africa’s leading economy. The steady flow of hundreds of billions of dollars helps South Africa cover its foreign currency shortages which it desperately needs to trade in international markets.

Now, to keep these financial inflows coming, National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank must prioritise high real interest rates and financial market stability to reassure foreign bondholders that SA is a safe space for their dollars, pounds and euros.

Although these high interest rates attract foreign bond buyers, they also make borrowing expensive for local businesses, which stifles job creation, hence SA’s high unemployment rate.
To National Treasury and the Reserve Bank, these are just the costs of doing business.

The point is that contrary to popular belief, the Treasury isn’t acting out of ignorance or lack of vision. They are aware that if they were to deviate too sharply to pursue aggressive growth policies, they would risk a currency collapse, soaring inflation and other quite serious economic problems they would rather not deal with.

Someone may argue that adopting these policies all those years ago in the first place *is* the stupidity Dr Lehohla is lamenting. This may very well be the case, but still, there were reasons beyond just a lack of imagination.

For one, when the original GNU took office in 1994, it inherited an economy that had been isolated by sanctions, burdened by high public debt and severely capital-starved. The South African Reserve Bank had virtually no foreign exchange reserves to defend the currency or finance international trade.

The SARB had no reserves because its senior officials had pilfered and looted the money when it started looking apparent that the White minority government would collapse.

Because of this, South Africa had gone from an economy designed to comfortably serve 10% of the population, to one that had to service tens of millions more overnight. But the internal savings were far too low to finance the massive infrastructure and industrial development needed for this.

To grow the economy and meet these new social goals, South Africa needed to import capital equipment and consumer goods. However, the country needed to importing far more than it was exporting which created a persistent current account deficit and without domestic savings to bridge the gap, the government had to desperately attract foreign capital. That’s how the foreign investors came swooping in.

But there was also something that happened in the early 1990s that spooked the ANC and convinced leadership at National Treasury and the Reserve Bank that the country was hyper-vulnerable to foreign currency shortages.

In early 1996, South Africa experienced a sudden capital outflow when rumours and market uncertainty caused foreign investors to pull short-term capital out of the country. As a result, the Rand depreciated by over 20% in a few months and because official foreign exchange reserves were so low, the Reserve Bank was powerless to defend the currency.

So, to prevent currency collapses that would spark runaway inflation and destroy purchasing power, the government concluded it had to prioritise foreign investor confidence above everything else.

So, in response to the 1996 crisis, the ANC shifted away from the state-led Redistribution and Development Programme and introduced GEAR which committed the country to the public budget and removing foreign exchange controls to reassure foreign investors that they could move their money in and out freely.

In short, South Africa adopted the current way of doing things as a deliberate strategy to solve the fundamental dilemma of how to finance a growing, open economy with insufficient domestic savings and low foreign exchange reserves.

Now, to be fair to Dr Lehohla, he could be saying they were stupid and spineless for caving to foreign pressure when they could have stood their ground and doubled down on state-led industrial development. In which case, I tend to agree.

I would go a bit further and say what Treasury is doing may have been a necessity in 1996, but was already unnecessary by 2006, let alone in 2026.

South Africa now has $75 to 80 billion in gross reserves vs. almost zero in 1996. So, the original scarcity rationale is diminished. Yet Treasury has continuously been running an austerity programme, even during commodity booms like in the 2000s when it could have built fiscal buffers and invested in infrastructure.

So Dr Lehohla’s lack of imagination accusation appears to land when you ask *why* the ANC government never adapted its strategy throughout the decades as conditions changed.

The answer to this question is disheartening. The reality is that if the government, through Treasury, were to attempt to change its economic trajectory, what happened in 1996 would repeat.
Vested interests would pull capital, short the rand, spread negative news and systematically suffocate the economy until the government falls back in line.

Still, Dr Lehohla is correct that the ANC has been stupid for a while. In the last twenty years they could have built countervailing power like through a sovereign wealth fund, a regional payment system outside dollar dominance, strategic reserves of essentials or diversified trading partners to reduce USD dependency.

Instead, they accepted dependence on short-term foreign dollars, which is why they now have to keep going back to the IMF and World Bank to borrow more of those dollars.

Similarly, the National Treasury has internalised the market’s preferences so completely that they now believe austerity is good policy instead of coercion. As Antonio Gramsci warned, the dominant ideology has now become common sense.

[Hane @LesediJohane]

😭😭😭😭

[Hane @LesediJohane]

2026 UCL Final💔

[BingeOnBenge @BingeOnBenge]

Name a loss that made you sit in silence for 30 minutes after the game.

[Hane @LesediJohane]

Investigate NERSA, Eskom and the Presidency

[Reggy @Reginah_Thage]

The cost of electricity in South Africa needs to be investigated ,buying electricity feels like we are being duped.

[Just Xavier B @JustXavierB]

In 1 Transaction I paid Checkers...

Who then paid SARS and also Pioneer Meters who then paid the Body Corporate who then Paid City of Joburg

From that 1100 got me R850 worth of electricity

We have too many players involved and only @Eskom_SA actually generates the product

[Hane @LesediJohane]

A wind farm in Mpumalanga??

[South African Government @GovernmentZA]

📽️President Cyril Ramaphosa arrives at Ummbila Emoyeni Wind Energy Facility near Bethal in Mpumalanga to officiate the commencement of commercial operations.

The commencement of commercial operations marks an important milestone in South Africa's efforts to strengthen energy security, advance infrastructure development and drive inclusive economic growth through investment in renewable energy.

#Agri4Change
#SAInnovates
#GovZAUpdates @Seriti_Green