Peter Bruce

Johannesburg

Columnist/Fumbling podcaster https://t.co/m0mK76wwsX Fmr Editor, Business Day & Financial Mail, Joburg. Ex Madrid, Bonn Corr & UK News Editor @FT🇿🇦🇺🇦

Articles

Fact is BEE is a cruel joke on the poor

4 weeks ago | theherald.co.za | Peter Bruce

Fact is BEE is a cruel joke on the poor Can the DA seriously not craft a way to use our economic calamity as an opportunity to sell an alternative? President Cyril Ramaphosa is a machine.
Is Cyril walking into a Trump trap?

1 month ago | timeslive.co.za | Peter Bruce

President Cyril Ramaphosa will be taking the risk of his political life when he meets US President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday. It’ll be their first meeting since the beginning of Trump’s second term in the White House in January, when he almost immediately began a furious assault on South African “transformation” policies, including land expropriation and BEE, along with almost entirely false claims of systemic discrimination against white Afrikaner farmers...
Nice words ‘inclusive growth’, but where’s the growth?

1 month ago | theherald.co.za | Peter Bruce

Premium No-one does race wars quite like South Africans. If you follow almost any media you’ll know that the introduction into law of the Employment Equity Amendment Act has us at each other’s throats again. The DA is taking the employment & labour minister to court to challenge new powers to impose racial quotas in the staff structures at all companies employing more than 50 people.
Some progress on the Trump front

1 month ago | timeslive.co.za | Peter Bruce

Some progress on the Trump front But what to offer Potus when we see him? 04 May 2025 - 00:00 Hardly had I finished reading a column the other day about how cellphone group MTN’s big business in Iran might make it impossible for its chair, Mcebisi Jonas, to act as a special emissary to the US to fix the ragged relations between Pretoria and Washington, than news dropped that Jonas had, in fact, already been on the phone to Donald Trump, the capricious US president...
When Cyril fell in love with Songezo

2 months ago | timeslive.co.za | Peter Bruce

When Cyril fell in love with Songezo The DA, Zibi charged, had tried to ‘extort’ the finance minister with demands about services in the Western Cape as the price of its support for a VAT increase 27 April 2025 - 00:00 ..
Better to build with steel than make it

2 months ago | theherald.co.za | Peter Bruce

Premium The left-wingers who control SA industrial policy are, I hear, celebrating that the British government has stepped in to prevent the UK’s last blast furnaces from closure and may even nationalise the last British Steel integrated steel plant at Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire. British Steel was privatised long ago, its final owners a Chinese group that “saved” Scunthorpe in 2020.
What about a G20 trade war summit, Cyril?

2 months ago | timeslive.co.za | Peter Bruce

What about a G20 trade war summit, Cyril? Ramaphosa has the clout to convene a special G20 summit in South Africa to talk about what is happening to the world and what might be done about it 13 April 2025 - 00:00 It is fortunate for South Africa that US President Donald Trump has the attention span of a goldfish.
PODCAST | What Business Wants from GNU

2 months ago | timeslive.co.za | Peter Bruce

Business for South Africa chair Martin Kingston tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that business would prefer the current Government of National Unity to stick together despite the current crisis over the DA’s decision not to support the budget. Business is deeply involved in Operation Vulindlela, the reform process inside the presidency but, says Kingston, they’re not going to interfere in the politics. “It’s much better in our view to stay the course,” he says.
Ramaphosa and Steenhuisen are both VAT war casualties

2 months ago | timeslive.co.za | Peter Bruce

US President Donald Trump’s monstrous, thumb-sucked ChatGPT import tariffs against the rest of the world (excluding Russia), including a wild 30% imposed on South Africa, coincide chillingly with President Cyril Ramaphosa reportedly arranging the departure of the DA from the government of national unity (GNU). If he goes ahead and reshuffles his vast cabinet, he’ll end up with a 10-party coalition with a majority of just two. ..
Justifying exclusivity in the name of inclusivity – our modern Greek tragedy (Part 2)

Mar 28, 2025 | dailymaverick.co.za | Jeff Rudin |Peter Bruce

Jeff Rudin works at the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) Being part of a political economy notorious for its world-beating inequality and in a country where Africans are 80% of the population, guarantees that most Africans will be poor. This is Part 2 in a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.