South Africa running on empty?

South Africa has been out of the news recently, but that could change.

I am grateful to Sam van den Berg in the Western Cape for pointing out this two-year-old prophecy by RW Johnson. His thesis is that the infrastructure which was put in place by the white minority governments has been allowed to decay for lack of maintenance and that not enough has been done to encourage wealth creation and stem disinvestment. By his reckoning, the ANC government will go to the international financial institutions for a massive hand-out this year.

That it has not happened yet is probably down to the recent rise in commodity prices. SA is dependent on imports of petroleum, but is otherwise rich in many of the minerals in demand during a rise in world economic activity. However, there must be worries about the effects of the next down-turn.