Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Songezo Zibi

Creator

Songezo Zibi

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivers the 2025 Budget. Photo: Jeffrey Abrahams/Gallo Images

The Fiscal Cliff | Political chaos as fiscal policy

Taxpayers’ pain has its roots set in a history that the finance minister could not overcome

Siya Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth pose with the Webb Ellis Cup during the South Africa Winners Portrait shoot after the Rugby World Cup Final match between New Zealand and South Africa at Stade de France on October 29, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Adam Pretty – World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)

The Boks’ real gift to South Africa is leadership

Rugby has shown us what real leaders look like – leaders who will fight for the people they represent

South Africans can thrive in Biko’s legacy

The struggle for real freedom in South Africa continues but has taken on new and additional layers and dimensions

Ballot: A banner for Zimbabwe’s main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change is displayed in Sibombvu village, outside Bulawayo, as the country heads to the polls this month. Photo: Zinyange Auntony/Getty Images

Zimbabwe needs a truly democratic elections outcome to realise its potential

The country remains a painful reminder of revolutionary leadership that has slipped from legitimacy

Graphic: John McCann

Corruption overwhelms the land as citizens run out of outrage juice

In the throes of finger-pointing, the authorities forget about the tools they already have at their disposal, such as the Corruption, Prevention and Combating of Corrupt…

(John McCann/M&G)

The self-immolation of America’s democracy

The politicalisation of the supreme court is sending the United States down a dangerous path

(John McCann/M&G)

The economy and the myth of the silver bullet

There are no capitalist witches controlling policymakers to keep people poor. Politicians are responsible for a stuck economy

Members of the ANC give testimony in Cape Town about human rights abuses committed during apartheid. (File photograph by Gallo Images/ Oryx Media Archive).

Time for nation building, not reconciliation

South Africa today needs justice in many different forms and must deliver real political power to the people, which requires new trade-offs and political rules and set new norms

Only a return to first principles can repair South Africa’s amoral foreign policy

We must reject our government’s natural position of saying nothing of consequence, regardless of the abuses in countries it regards as friends

Hundreds of people who had built shacks on state land in Tafelsig on the Cape Flats were removed by police. Most had moved out of their backyard shacks in Mitchells Plain

Wanted: A credible evangelist for land

Restitution needs an efficient process with clear principles to fulfil spiritual and material needs

Silence

Editorial process and opinion on content are two separate factors

The fake identity issue is a red herring. There are very important principles at play – including the selective silencing of views some may not like.

Nelson Mandela’s home town of Qunu.

Lessons for national healing

Read this edited extract from Songezo Zibi’s book, Raising the Bar: Hope and Renewal in South Africa.

Agent Provocateur: SABC soapie calls for reality check

Cadre deployment must end so the corporation can fulfil its public mandate.

Success demands self-sacrifice

Leaders in the public and private sectors must show they are serious about change.

FNB cowardly to capitulate to ANC

As the storm over the disastrous FNB ad campaign blows over, it’s important to examine its implications for SA as a budding democratic society.

Education: Celebrating failure says it all

The failure of education is political and goes back to the importance we attach to it, says Songezo Zibi.

Banks have unfairly assisted Jacob Zuma because of his political position.

Songezo Zibi: Nkandla exposes corporate rot

It is fashionable to blame politicians for a lack of ethics, but they are abetted by business

Alan Greenspan said the rule of law helps economies to grow.

State institutions shape the future

Businesses will circumvent the law to protect their interests if government is corrupt, writes Songezo Zibi.

Former acting National Prosecuting Authority director Mokotedi Mpshe.

Legitimacy in a time of political perversion

As Julius Malema and others face criminal charges, the whiff of political interference is in the air again.

Nonracialism and the untouchables

We need a generation of black people who refuse to be defined by the victimhood of colonialism, writes <b>Songezo Zibi</b>.