The th!nc Foundation

 Published in the Sunday Times on 01 May 2024 and the Business Day 01 May 2024 As our country is in the last laps of selecting leaders from what is on offer, we are saddened to learn of the passing of Ntate Sam Motsuenyane. A thoroughbred from a cohort of leaders that sought to model business leadership, South Africa yearns to see remastered into the present. A rare breed as strange breeds continue to ravage our concept of leadership, Dr Motsuenyane's ilk has modelled for us. In every waking hour, on behalf of the people whose business destiny Dr Motsuenyane sought to determine, he provided the object for their curiosity and gaze. He became the native, plural, baNtu, and an African-in-particular amongst several variants of the human race we all are. He was the business leader who was eloquent in foresight -the genius that apartheid bondage and colonialism could not destroy and -the embodiment of an African story that kept unfolding until his last days.  An advocate of a...

Published on 28 April 2024 in the Sunday Times Listening to President Thabo Mbeki on the occasion of the launch of a book about the ANC Today letters issued in his name and on the eve of the 30th anniversary of RSA freedom, it became apparent that his recall or departure from our politics was a loss to the broader intellectual architecture and achievements of the ANC. How he articulated what informed the decision to claim 'the megaphone' of communicating the ANC message from its highest policy nodal point, and the known impact the letter had on the collaborative policy coordination between the office of the ANC President and the State President's office, clearly indicate how his presidency was hegemonic on the post-apartheid narrative about RSA. How Mbeki reclaimed the interpretation power of the media at the time the ANC needed to manage the transition from a President Mandela GNU, political transition, and new Constitution drafting era to a democratic and constitutional o...

Published in the Sunday Tines on 23 April 2024 The responsibility of liberating a nation from an oppressive system like apartheid remains that of revolutionaries, activists, and conscientious members of society. Naturally, one organisation or institution will emerge as the leader of society in the management of the struggle system, and this is the ANC as the leader of the liberation movement executed. The outcome of the political settlement that follows the liberation struggle tends to be what the liberation movement defined as what it aspires for that particular society.  In South Africa, the constitution, as the abstraction of the freedoms the struggle was all about, aggregates the political emotions of those who led and how they projected into the future. After the negotiated settlement, what was aspired for became the context of politics, and this made the struggle heritage a property of South Africa.    "Heritage is an embodiment of a past we wish to take into ...

At the launch of the ANC  in 1912, the unity of African Tribes and the exclusion of Africans defined and determined the political history of what became the Republic of South Africa. The ultimate prize of establishing a Native Congress was to guarantee enfranchisement and representation in the emerging architecture of political power. The seeds of a political system where democracy for those who vote guarantees their equality, with the undergirding economic system not guaranteeing equal opportunities, were planted then. The paradigm of freedom for the native congress became inclusion in the system, and once inside, recalibrated its templates of all dominance. The extent to which this foundational reality has been abandoned is yet to be seen as inclusion, which happened in 1994.    The ANC is now part of the system, if not the system itself; it is included. It is also the true animating force behind the policy trajectory South Africa has been following for the past th...

THE THINC FOUNDATION PUBLISHES THIS CITATION FOR DR PHEKO BY THAMI KA PLAATJIE, FORMER PAN-AFRICANIST LEADER, IN HONOUR OF DR MOTSOKO PHEKO, WHO PASSED ON 19th APRIL, 2024. Speaking on the occasion of his doctoral graduation ceremony in 1946, Dr B. W. Vilakazi ( after whom the Vilakazi street in Soweto has been named) counselled and admonished his audience thus: “ You must not only look at the eminence that I have achieved but at the depths from whence I have arisen. “  Dr Motsoko Pheko can also use this moment as a tocsin to echo these sentiments on his conferment with a doctoral degree from the University of South Africa.  The depths of oppression and deprivation from whence he came have placed him on a higher pedestal of academic eminence.  It is both timely and befitting that he will be robbed in the scarlet of the Honorary Doctorate by this historic universe(city). Through his elaborate, insightful and extensive body of work, Dr Pheko has done humanity a yeoman servi...

The post–2021 government by coalition landscape in RSA was primarily created by an opposition complex that played to its strengths. The opposition sees ANC's dislodgement from the governing party status as an opportunity in the coalition government chaos. The opposition complex leaders are exploiting and escalating the growing discontent with the ANC's on-the-immediate doorstep service delivery dysfunctions to elevate their stature, weaken and delegitimise its deployees, undermine its NDR hegemonic interests, and further shape the democratic order in their favour. The opposition complex is now in a better position than ever to dominate the national discourse, including the ability to disrupt the intergovernmental relations system at multiple and critical chokepoints of service delivery.   Left unchecked, the dramatic expansion of the opposition complex's influence would have a catastrophic impact on the strategic initiative about South Africa's transformation. Included ...

Published in the Sunday Times on 18 April 2024 In his rendition at a ULP event, ANC stalwart and one of South Africa's thinkers, Joel Netshitendze, opines that 'leaders have a good sense of moments in history and how to utilise them'. The 6th Administration has landed on Ramaphosa two moments in which history will record him as being able to have seized and utilised.    Firstly, history called on him to confront corruption and state capture. By characterising his organisation as 'accused number one in the dock', he seized the strategic initiative to make South Africa's foremost nexus of politics, the ANC, the force through which corruption could be fought. The resultant member integrity management system, which is now being considered for adoption in handling same amongst the public service SMS, is an innovation that might be RSA's contribution to human civilisation. Adopting a regulatory framework to make it illegal for a company not to report corruption ha...

Published in the Sunday Times 14 April 2024 In almost all court appearances Jacob Zuma has been, his supporters have asked "Wenzeni uZuma". With its intricate layers and the inability of the criminal justice system to provide a definitive answer, this question has become a mystery that prosecution authorities cannot settle. The complexity of this question, not of its own making, and somewhat due to the ingenuity of Zuma's complex of legal minds, has compromised the National Prosecution Authority's reputation to lead conviction guaranteeing prosecutions. This compromise has several other high-profile individual cases as evidence of deeper fissures in constructing prima facie evidence to justify persecution.    The constant pursuit of Jacob Zuma amidst his unrelenting support by many South Africans has iconised him to levels where any guilty verdict might compromise the judicial system, despite its independence. The design of South Africa's constitutional order ...

Published in the Sunday Times 09 April 2024 The saga around the ultimate charging of South Africa's chief lawmaker might indicate that the governing party is not only shedding its old skin and staying the same but metamorphosing into a creature we are poised to encounter beyond May 29, 2024. Notwithstanding that her surrender was preceded by a dramatic display of a truism that 'politicians can’t be expected to act contrary to their well-being', the speaker was indeed sensitive to the disrepute her quest to be innocent was or would be bringing to the office she held.    She now stands in the dock with many in our land, as accused number one, as the President once opined. It is true that, by law, she is presumed innocent until proven guilty, a right she shares with all South Africans. However, we don't share with her the depth of reputational damage her arrest did to society's trust in our democratic order, which her indictment of the NPA characterises as a right. Man...

This is a speech delivered by DPSA Minister Richard M Baloyi at an anti-corruption summit at the Sandton Convention Center in Johannesburg. The CEO of the Thinc Foundation was then Special Advisor to the Minister.  In the light of corruption rearing its head to higher levels, as it was then, we though we should share with the Thinc community.  Programme Director; President of Business Unity South Africa, Ms Futhi Mthoba; All business leaders present here; Government and civil society representatives; Distinguished guests; Ladies and gentlemen; All protocols observed;   It is my pleasure to address you on the subject corruption. I must first start by congratulating BUSA for occupying the space of anti-corruption discourse in our country and continent. The Anti-Corruption Business Forum remains one of the rare opportunities that our business community has to reflect on issues of; what is this corruption, how does it manifest itself in society, who is the...