PALI LEHOHLA | The Reprivate of South Africa: there are cycles better than this vicious one

For the sake of the poor, we need a solution to the increasing privatisation of power supply, such as the game-changing M-cycle

29 January 2023 - 19:58 By PALI LEHOHLA

I had a curiosity about the word public and I also had curiosity about the word private. Once you add a prefix re- it becomes republic and similarly for private it become re-private. In the Sotho-Tswana languages the “re private” will literally mean “we are private” and so we are no longer a republic. So many goods that fit a public good such as schools, health, security and now electricity are private, water will follow and the privatisation of public goods will have been concluded by our neoliberal government. Are we still the republic or have we become the Reprivate of South Africa? But what are the implications of the mad season of privatisation we have entered into, especially on the poor? ..

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