
Max du Preez gets taken to task for not once criticising media/tech giant Naspers for its role in facilitating human rights abuses in China
The Inaugural Stephen Ellis Memorial Lecture was recently delivered by Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State. In it he makes some very valid comments about the current wave of student protests at South African universities and the role that white academic and cultural intransigence, an apathetic government and a new generation of black intolerance have played in its emergence.
The venality and gross incompetence of the ANC government have provided a convenient smokescreen for unelected lobbyists and vested interest groups to inveigle themselves into the South African political process at the expense of transparency and democracy. One such organisation is the Free Market Foundation, a neo-liberal lobby group that styles itself as a non-profit Public Benefit Organisation.
The World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index for 2015 ranked South Africa a fairly average 48th out of 141 countries. For a country blessed with such rich natural and cultural resources as South Africa, the varied factors holding back the country’s travel and tourism potential are cause for introspection and decisive action.