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        <title>Polity.org.za | Real Economy</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Terence Creamer is the Editor of Engineering News and a Deputy Editor for Mining Weekly.]]></description>
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            <title>Costly delay</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/costly-delay-2026-10-02</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The difficulties being faced by South Africa’s steel industry extend beyond the well-documented problems of primary steelmaking. Epitomised by the recent mothballing by ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) of the Newcastle Works and the closure of its longs business. Mid-stream and downstream processors and fabricators are also facing the pressures associated with an industry that has a fundamental supply/demand imbalance globally. Pressures that are amplified by the fact that most countries treat their steel industries as strategic.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: STEEL</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Burning platform</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/burning-platform-2026-09-25</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Prior to the stabilisation of Eskom’s operational performance, the issue of loadshedding was undoubtedly South Africa’s ‘burning platform’. Besides holding back growth and sapping citizens of confidence, the State-owned utility was also a serious financial drain. Many South Africans felt doubly robbed when their taxes were used to bail-out the entity while electricity tariffs rose steeply, and triply so when stories of corruption, as well as fruitless and wasteful expenditure, flowed like the diesel being burned in huge volumes in costly open-cycle gas turbines.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: JOHANNESBURG</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Share the strategy</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/share-the-strategy-2026-09-18</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Most South African manufacturers, besides those few companies benefitting from market tailwinds linked to the deadly conflict disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, are under strain. The pain is broad-based, with upstream, midstream and downstream value-chain participants all feeling the effects of weak demand, surging imports and inadequate trade enforcement. The latest Absa Purchasing Managers’ Index partly reflects this unhappy reality. It declined for the fourth consecutive month in August to 45.8 points, the lowest reading so far this year. South Africa’s second-quarter GDP contraction of 0.2% also underlines the distress, with manufacturing recording its third consecutive quarterly decline.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: INDUSTRIAL POLICY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Hands on</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/hands-on-2026-09-11</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Admissions by Bill Gates about various personal indiscretions – notably his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – have raised questions about his personal judgement and continue to weigh on his reputation. Even though he is not accused of any involvement in Epstein’s crimes. However, there is no denying how influential Gates has been personally, as well as through Microsoft, in driving the technological developments that now shape how we work, communicate, learn, and even play.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: AI REGULATION</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Beyond catch-up</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/beyond-catch-up-2026-09-04</link>
            <description><![CDATA[For most South Africans living in the country’s largest cities, the infrastructure backlogs are not only visible but painfully disruptive. Driving without hitting a pothole has become a perilous art, as has navigating piecemeal water or electricity repairs where the resultant holes are left gaping for months, if not years. The stench of sewer leaks pollutes the air in many neighbourhoods, where water supply is also erratic and power cuts continue despite the official demise of loadshedding.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: CITY INFRASTRUCTURE</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Palliative relief</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/palliative-relief-2026-08-28</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There were relatively high expectations ahead of the publication of the revised electricity pricing policy. Partly because the Minister had flagged it as a key document, but mostly because tariff hikes of more than 900% since 2007 have created broad-based affordability pressures, in some cases existential ones. The policy is important for setting the framework for long-term sustainability, but on the affordability front many of its remedies are palliative; balms that come in the form of subsidies, with the policy defining who should be eligible and whether the consumer or the taxpayer pays.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Optimism as a tactic</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/optimism-as-a-tactic-2026-08-21</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Few could dispute that Discovery CEO Adrian Gore has emerged as the most influential South African business leader of his generation. Even those, or perhaps especially those, who do everything from tying their smartwatch to their dog’s collar to get their 10 000 steps, or who make that special trip to the gym on a Friday simply to tag-in so as to earn those last 100 points needed to meet that week’s fitness goal. Gore and Discovery are so fully integrated into South Africa’s cultural imagination that dinner-table discussions regularly turn to whether they are dictating everything from how and when we sleep to where we buy our groceries. Pontifications veer wildly from whether Vitality is akin to an Orwellian ‘Big Brother’ to facetious questions about why Discovery has not created a rewards programme to incentivise municipal officials to fix chronically broken traffic lights.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: BUSINESS LEADERSHIP</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>TSO close, but not yet</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/tso-close-but-not-yet-2026-08-14</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There is no question that President Ramaphosa’s endorsement of the Phase I report of the Eskom Restructuring Task Team (ERTT) is a key milestone in the ongoing reform of South Africa’s electricity sector. The report focused on developing a high-level proposal to establish an independent Transmission System Operator (TSO). It was guided by both the amended Electricity Regulation Act, which includes a five-year timeframe from 2025 for the creation of the TSO, and the ERTT’s terms of reference.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ELECTRICITY</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Important signals</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/important-signals-2026-08-07</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Recent interventions by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and the National Treasury have helped shed light on issues that had hitherto been allowed to fester in dark corners. The most high-profile intervention has undoubtedly been the one at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), where recent governance shortcomings, investment failures and unauthorised restructuring were risking the stability of an institution responsible for managing public-sector pension and social funds. It is estimated that the PIC has assets under management of R3.6-trillion, making good governance beyond essential and public scrutiny inevitable.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: PUBLIC FINANCE</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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            <title>Missed opportunity</title>
            <link>https://www.polity.org.za/article/missed-opportunity-2026-07-31</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The uptake of rooftop solar in South Africa has increased dramatically over the past five or so years, spurred initially by the extreme loadshedding from 2021 to 2024. Using satellite and other aerial photographic data, a new report by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) estimates that about 5.98-billion kWh of electricity was generated from the total installed rooftop capacity of 3 495 MWp over a one-year period.]]></description>
            <author>Terence Creamer</author>
            <category>REAL ECONOMY: ROOFTOP SOLAR</category>
            <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
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