If “protecting the value of the currency” is reduced to CPI management alone, then the civic purpose of the rand is being quietly abandoned. This isn’t a personal attack. It’s a necessary question. Full analysis:

Today, the rand functions as: • A shock absorber for political risk • A discount for foreign entry • A disciplining tool for labour It works for markets — but not for citizens.

At its most basic level, a currency should: • Preserve purchasing power • Enable saving and investment • Allow citizens to participate in their own economy When it fails at this, it stops being a public utility.

Look at Cape Town. People earning in dollars, pounds, and euros outbid locals for housing — not because they’re more productive, but because the rand is structurally weak. That’s not a market outcome. It’s a currency outcome.

A weak rand isn’t neutral. It advantages: • Foreign earners • External capital • Hard-currency asset holders While disadvantaging citizens who earn, save, and plan in rands.

In practice, SARB has interpreted this mandate narrowly as: • CPI targeting • Interest rate adjustments • Accepting rand weakness as collateral damage That interpretation is a policy choice — not a constitutional instruction.

The Constitution mandates the Reserve Bank to protect the value of the currency in pursuit of price stability and sustainable growth — independently, without fear or favour. “Protect the value” is doing a lot of work here.

South Africans are told the rand is “doing its job” as long as inflation is controlled. But what is the point of a national currency if it systematically disadvantages its own citizens?

SA is called a representative democracy. That means ministers are to represent citizens — not ignore them. If a minister knows what citizens want and still acts against it, democracy is already dead. What we have then isn’t democracy — it’s a kleptocracy with elections.

Supermajorities force persuasion beyond race and party bases. They slow reckless policy without blocking real reform.

Ordinary governance = majority rule. Irreversible change = higher thresholds (60–70%), public participation, and time delays.

The alternative isn’t minority rule or elite control. It’s popular sovereignty with supermajority revision. 8/

This doesn’t empower citizens. It turns democracy into a numbers game where dissent is delegitimised and institutions are weakened.

In South Africa, race has repeatedly been used to mobilise loyalty rather than debate policy. Criticism becomes “betrayal.” Accountability becomes “counter-revolutionary.”

A permanent majority creates incentives to divide rather than deliver. Fear, identity, and history become cheaper tools than performance.

If voters can’t directly choose governments — and can’t remove them when they fail — democracy becomes procedural, not empowering. Full analysis here 👇 https://t.co/ZmJKVwQKAK

This doesn’t mean donors “choose governments.” But elite networks increasingly shape outcomes by providing funding, legitimacy, and policy framing — often beyond voter control.

This isn’t just about ANC or DA. In 2024, the Brenthurst Foundation donated to the IFP for the first time — the same election that brought the IFP into national government via the GNU.

Political funding deepens this problem. Parties rely on public money and private donors, shifting accountability away from voters and toward elite interests.

In representative democracies, power is delegated — but often never fully returned. Between elections, accountability weakens, especially in coalition systems.