jobs in south africa 2016

south africa’s economy has been ranked asone of the world’s most miserable, with soaring public debt and a quarter of the workforceunemployed. to combat this, president jacob zuma and his administration have promisedausterity measures. yet zuma himself has spent more than $20 million dollars of state fundsfor upgrades to his home, which included a pool, a chicken coop and an amphitheatre.and, in may 2016, it was revealed that the state had spent roughly $550 thousand dollarson cars for zuma’s four wives. so, we wanted to know, just how corrupt is south africa? well, south africa actually has a strict legalframework that is tough on corruption, with bribery, extortion, fraud and money laundering,all considered criminal offences. however

these laws often go unenforced, and corruptionis widely considered a plague on the south african economy. this corruption generally comes in two forms.one is tenderpreneurship, which is when a public official or other well-connected individualuses their high status to profit from inflated contracts, which are also called “tenders”.the practice is so prevalent that some economists say it is partially to blame for south africa’sstifled development and tarnished image as an attractive destination for foreign investment.in one of the most infamous cases of tenderpreneurship, zuma and his former financial advisor, receivedkickbacks from a multi- billion dollar arms deal. in 2005, the advisor was found guiltyof fraud and corruption, and zuma himself

faced more than 700 charges linked to thescandal. but in 2009, shortly before zuma was elected president, all charges againsthim were dropped. corruption was the subject of public outcry again in june 2016, whenviolent protests broke out in the city of tshwane. south africa’s ruling party chosean allegedly corrupt senior official rather than a local person for the mayoral candidacy. corruption is also rampant in the privatesector. much of it comes from abusing the broad based black economic empowerment act,or bee, which was created in the early 2000’s as direct response to nearly half a centuryof apartheid policies which favored white-owned businesses. the law aims to redistribute assetsand wealth among the country’s minority

population by requiring businesses to hirea set proportion of black employees in order to secure licenses and government contracts.the law in this case, “black” is an umbrella term for historically disadvantaged people,and can include women and other minorities. corruption takes the form of fronting, whichoccurs when a mostly white-owned business misrepresents itself as racially diverse inorder to benefit from bee. but south africa is arguably best known forzuma’s questionable practices. many of them have been tied to the infamous indian-borngupta brothers, who have personal and professional ties with zuma. the brothers allegedly wieldtheir power to appoint individuals to positions in parliament that directly benefit theirown business ventures.

however this, like most other instances ofhigh-level corruption, has been difficult to prove. and, despite calls for zuma to stepdown and an attempt from the country’s opposition party to impeach him, he is projected to servethe remainder of his second term until 2019. until south africa elects a more just leaderand further enforces their existing anti-corruption framework, this shady behavior will likelycontinue. south africa’s corrupt government is partof the reason why the country’s was named as having one of the world’s most miserableeconomies. find out what other countries made the 2016 misery index by watching this video.

Fahmy Herbals @ 04.23