One might be tempted to congratulate David Masondo on the recent court interdict the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) obtained (Sunday Times, March 15 2026). However, such victories do little to address larger governance concerns surrounding the institution.
The Mpati commission made clear recommendations to strengthen governance at the PIC, including that its chairperson be independent. However, years later the board remains chaired by a serving deputy minister. Indeed, recent reports about alleged irregularities involving the government pensions administration agency, which operates under his watch, suggest governance concerns within the broader pension ecosystem remain far from resolved.
More troubling is the limited voice afforded pensioners — the ultimate owners of the funds. Out of a board of 16 trustees, just one member represents pensioners. This imbalance sits uneasily with the fiduciary duty owed to beneficiaries of the government employees pension fund.
[ Masondo wins court order barring businessman from repeating PIC corruption claimsOpens in new window ]
Masondo cites the scale of the fund — R3.7-trillion — as evidence of its strength. But the size of the fund means little if pension increases continue to lag behind the real cost of living. A pension fund’s success should ultimately be measured by the purchasing power it preserves for its beneficiaries.
Before celebrating courtroom victories, the PIC should complete the governance reforms that remain unfinished.
- Maxwell Gopane, Mahikeng
SA’s universities must be rooted in local lived realities
Universities must avoid becoming islands of international discourse floating above the society that created them and continues to sustain them.
Prof Zeblon Vilakazi’s thoughtful defence of internationalisation in South African universities raises an important issue. Few would dispute that universities benefit from the global circulation of ideas and scholars. Knowledge has always travelled across borders, and intellectual collaboration enriches academic life.
The deepest responsibility of a university is to nurture knowledge that grows from the experiences, challenges and aspirations of the society that sustains it.
South African students and academics already engage with global ideas through international journals, digital libraries, global academic conferences, online research collaboration, and so on.
Scholars who grow up, study and work in a society often carry deep familiarity with its history, social dynamics, economic realities, and cultural traditions
— Chris Kanyane, Pretoria
A student sitting in Soweto or Polokwane today can access global scholarship instantly through the internet. Research papers circulate globally. Textbooks published in cities such as New York or London are used worldwide. Online academic platforms allow scholars everywhere to participate in global conversations. In this environment, knowledge already circulates globally.
The question is therefore not whether South Africa participates in global scholarship — it already does. The real question is whether our universities are developing a strong intellectual tradition rooted in South African realities.
A healthy university system depends on cultivating local academic capacity. Scholars who grow up, study and work in a society often carry deep familiarity with its history, social dynamics, economic realities, and cultural traditions. This knowledge is essential for interpreting complex national problems.
[ UCT climbs global rankings, remains Africa’s top universityOpens in new window ]
South Africa must therefore invest in developing a large and confident generation of local scholars capable of shaping the country’s intellectual future. If universities become too consumed by internationalisation, they risk drifting away from the everyday realities of the societies that sustain them.
South Africa’s intellectual future will ultimately depend, not only on participation in global scholarship, but on developing local scholars to generate ideas rooted in this country that contribute to the wider world.
South Africa also has vast reservoirs of knowledge that remain largely untapped. The country’s complex and multifaceted history, interwoven communities, rural economies, township dynamics, and unique social institutions contain layers of experience that scholars who have grown up in this society are uniquely positioned to interpret.
International collaboration enriches universities, but a university must never lose sight of the ground beneath its feet. It exists because a society created it, supports it, and expects it to speak meaningfully to its own realities.
- Chris Kanyane, Pretoria
No wins in the gambling game
It broke my heart to read “Cash-strapped workers turn to the dice” (Sunday Times Business Times, March 15 2026), followed by “Banks keep tabs on gambling trends” (Business Day, March 16 2026).
There are thousands of families whose lives have been, and will be, devastated by their members falling prey to the seductive embrace of the gambling industry, aided and abetted by parts of the media, the advertising industry, and the government.
How do people decide what to bet on, and how much to bet? The average punter doesn’t have any idea of what the risks are — or perhaps doesn’t care. Decisions are influenced largely by psychologically sophisticated advertising that relies on a finely calculated mixture of greed, sex, huge payout promises, physically attractive industry personnel, big wins that allow the good life few can even imagine, and meaningless slogans such as “winners know when to stop”.
How many gamblers have even a rudimentary idea of the risk/reward returns in gambling? Do they know, for example, the odds of the roulette wheel stopping at black? Or even a coin toss coming up heads? Do they know anything about probabilities or odds? Such knowledge protects punters from falling victim to the gamblers’ fallacy, in terms of which a run of, say, black in roulette means red must be ”due”, and that bets should be placed accordingly.
A powerful lesson for gamblers is the fate of the US firm Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). Despite its board including Nobel Prize winners and it having professional staff that included financial experts, brilliant mathematicians and sophisticated bookmakers, it was dissolved in 2000 after having initially made returns of 21% in its first year, 43% in its second year, and 41% in its third year. If a high-flyer such as LTCM could suffer this fate, local punters who think they have the skills to gamble their way out of financial distress should take note.
Much of the media is complicit in promoting the cruel gambling deception.
Government proposals to levy higher taxes on gambling will not reduce its egregiously damaging effects on the poor, the desperate, the uninformed, the unemployed, the millions who survive on social grants, and especially those who have become addicted to gambling. The government itself will become addicted to such taxes, consolidating the gambling industry in South Africa and making it much more difficult to regulate.
So what is to be done? All gambling advertising should be banned, as is the case with smoking; public education campaigns on the risks of gambling and the minimal chances of winning consistently should be run; and a public inquiry into the odds-setting models employed by the industry should be mounted.
- Dr Doug Blackmur, Table View
ANC promoted lying former minister
Disgraced ANC former higher education minister Nobuhle Nkabane has been appointed deputy chief whip of the ANC’s parliamentary caucus.
Nkabane was axed last July by President Cyril Ramaphosa following allegations she had misled parliament and made irregular sector education and training authorities (Seta) board appointments.
[ Disgraced Nobuhle Nkabane now ANC deputy chief whipOpens in new window ]
Whatever happened to Ramaphosa’s much-vaunted “step-aside” rule? Not only has this lying ANC minister not been made to step aside, but the ANC has promoted her to an internal disciplinary position.
This is yet another example of Ramaphosa’s ineptitude, dishonesty and ineffectiveness — and the deep rot within the ANC.
Local elections are coming.
- Mark Lowe, Durban
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