Roundtable Series

Issue Nineteen - May 2011 - Making Local Gavernment Work

Francis Antonie, Director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and Chair for the evening, began by noting that as the evening’s roundtable takes place on the eve of the Municipal Elections, questions around the efficiency, effectiveness and the role of local government are up for discussion. He laid the foundation for the discussion by outlining several questions to frame the debate. These included questions around the capacity of local government, funding issues, the appropriateness of the structures of local government for dealing with corruption, and the susceptibility of the administrative structures to pressures from economic and political elites. He ended by posing the question, “Have we not set local government up for failure?”

Issue Eighteen - Febuary 2011 - South Africa's Debt Trap

The Helen Suzman Foundation, in association with its partner the Open Society Foundation For South Africa, hosted its first QRS of the year. The QRS explored South Africa’s Debt Trap against the background of the National Credit Act, and the responses to this Act from the Banking sector and Micro Finance Industry.

Issue Seventeen - September 2010 - The Energy Mix: Electrifying South Africa

As the state of South Africa continues its search of efficient and effective resolutions to the energy dilemma and strives to meet the country’s long term demand, The Helen Suzman Foundation took the opportunity to host a roundtable discussion on this issue. The theme of the discussion, The Energy Mix: Electrifying South Africa, has its roots in the government’s expressed commitment to expand the country’s energy mix and to move beyond fossil-based fuel sources.

Issue Sixteen - August 2010 - Of Strangers and Outsiders: Overcoming Xenophobia

T he Helen Suzman Foundation, in association with The Open Society Foundation For South Africa, hosted a roundtable discussion on Wednesday 18 August 2010, entitled Of Strangers and Outsiders: Overcoming Xenophobia. The debate was lively and the event was attended by around 160 people.

Issue Fifteen - May 2010 - Sport, Nation Building and Development

The Helen Suzman Foundation in association with, the Open Society Foundation For South Africa, hosted another Quarterly Roundtable on Sport, Nation Building and Development. It was held at the Country Club Johannesburg in Auckland Park on Monday 31 May 2010. The Roundtable was attended by a cross section of the public and people currently working within the field of sports development research and community sporting initiatives.

Issue Fourteen - March 2010 - Identity: Are there any South Africans?

The Foundation’s liveliest roundtable to date was held at the Johannesburg Country Club, 10 March 2010. The varied panel comprising Antjie Krog (Begging to be Black), Eusebius McKaiser (columnist and blogger), William Gumede (political analyst) and Ivor Chipkin (Do South African’s Exist?) provided provocative, contrasting and stimulating presentations.

Issue Thirteen - December 2009 - Strategic Health Reform

The Round Table on Health Reform, part of the HSF’s Quarterly Round Table series held in association with the Open Society Foundation For South Africa, was attended by some one hundred and sixty members of the public, health practitioners, government officials, financial analysts, bankers and members of the insurance industry. Headline presenters Tebogo Phadu of the ANC policy unit and Alex van den Heever, an independent health economist led the discussion. Francis Antonie chaired the Round Table and Jonathan Broomberg, Chris Archer, Trevor Terblanche, Joe Veriava and Hein van Eck were discussants.

Issue Twelve - October 2009 - Planning our Future: SA 2025

The Helen Suzman Foundation hosted a lively panel discussion at the Rosebank Hotel on the 14 October 2009. Former HSF Director Raenette Taljaard chaired the discussion and the panel made up of Neren Rau (CEO Sacci); Aubrey Matshiqi (independent analyst), Azar Jammine (Econometrics) and William Gumede (independent analyst) provided thought provoking and substantive comment. The discussion covered two new Green Papers: National Strategic Planning and Improving Government Performance, submitted by Trevor Manuel and Collins Chabane respectively.

Issue Eleven - April 2009 - Paying the Piper: Regulating Party Funding in South African Politics

The election campaign for the fourth democratically elected Government and Parliament of the Republic of South Africa has been one of the most expensive in our history. As our political parties spawn new market entrants into the party political space and others grow and consolidate their financial needs magnify accordingly. In terms of existing laws and regulations, particularly the fund established in accordance with the Public Funding of Represented Political Parties Fund Act.

Issue Ten- March 2009 - Electoral Economics in the eye of a global storm

South Africa’s economic policy landscape has experienced one global financial crisis before. It emanated from Asia in the early 1990s, uncomfortably coinciding with our country’s transition to democracy at a time when a new administration had to win the hearts and minds, and confidence, of the global economy and international investors. The response to this crisis, the fiscal austerity of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy (GEAR) adopted by the South African government in 1996, was, and remains, a controversial policy response. It caused significant strain within the tripartite alliance, despite there clearly being very little domestic policy room amid a deepening crisis that engulfed all emerging markets and confronted a new government with no economic-policy track record with immediate and complex questions.

Issue Nine - December 2008 - Protecting and Defending our Constitution

The longevity of founding documents, declarations and constitutions are the preserve of all citizens who care about the ethos that inspires the societies they inhabit, and it lies in a complex process of internalising the visionary values of these social contracts and acting, and structuring our actions and our words, every day, to further the ideals espoused in them.

Issue Eight - November 2008 - Courts in a Crucible?

The past year has been a challenging one for South Africa’s judiciary. It has been both the object and subject of much political controversy. Judges have been in the spotlight of controversy, senior political leaders of various affiliations have brazenly and calculatedly attacked the judiciary under the guise of legitimate criticism and judges themselves have acted in ways that have posed new challenges for the judiciary as a whole (with a judge of the High Courts and the justices of the Constitutional Court at loggerheads). The situation has furthermore posed challenges for the operation and procedures of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and the concept of judicial misconduct and for the manner in which the public view the judiciary, the legitimacy of the courts and the justness of rulings from the bench.