Engineering News | Columnist | Keith Campbell | Wheels Within Wheels

Down with red tape!

By: Keith Campbell 26th July 2013 Early this month, the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs jointly launched their ‘Guidelines for Reducing Municipal Red Tape: How Municipalities Can Improve Service Delivery that Supports Small Business’. Developed in cooperation with the South... →

The emergence of an economic Superbloc

By: Keith Campbell 28th June 2013 The 2013 G8 Summit took place at the beginning of last week, near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh in the UK province of Northern Ireland. The G8 group comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US. One thing that was striking was the pathetic turnout by anticapitalist... →

National insecurity

By: Keith Campbell 31st May 2013 One of the unintentionally funny aspects of “l’affaire Gupta” – in which a chartered jet landed at Air Force Base Waterkloof in Pretoria carrying guests from India for a wedding being celebrated by the wealthy and politically very-well-connected Gupta family, who were then escorted by police and... →

Forget a grandiose alliance – be realistic about Brics

By: Keith Campbell 26th April 2013 The Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit has come and gone. In comparison to the hype that preceded it in this country, the results appeared to be meagre. However, as participants in a Frontier Advisory-organised seminar pointed out (see story in this edition), given the... →

Five doesn’t eliminate the need for three

By: Keith Campbell 29th March 2013 I recently attended a seminar on “South Africa and Brazil in the Brics and Beyond” jointly organised by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and Centro de Estudos e Pesquisa – Brics of Rio de Janeiro (which officially translates its name as the Brics Policy Centre). Brics... →

Cutting the ‘Brazil cost’ – what about the South Africa cost?

By: Keith Campbell 22nd February 2013 It was recently reported in Brazil that that country’s Federal government intended to privatise, through concessioning, 158 port terminals. This marks another step in the reactivation of privatisation by the administration of President Dilma Rousseff as a means to stimulate the Brazilian economy,... →

The political storm over Amplats only causes more harm

By: Keith Campbell 25th January 2013 Firstly, a Happy New year to everybody. And a prosperous one. After all, only through prosperity can we retain existing and create new jobs. Obviously, the the world did not end, as some feared (hoped?) on December 21, the day the calendar of the Mayan civilisation ended. Now, I must confess to... →