Launch of 'After Dawn' by Mcebisi Jonas on August 13

In October 2015, the Gupta brothers offered Mcebisi Jonas the position of minister of finance in exchange for R600m. Then deputy minister of finance, Jonas turned down the bribe and a period of deep introspection followed for him. How did we reach this point, and what did the future hold for SA’s democracy and the economy?

In After Dawn, Jonas analyses the crisis at the heart of our current system, which places politics at the centre of policy making and implementation, at the expense of growth. In this important and authoritative book, Jonas first unpacks and analyses the current badlands of SA's economic and political landscape.

In the second half, Jonas proposes a series of workable and practical solutions for transitioning the country into a growing, job-creating country. His solutions include:

• putting inclusive growth at the centre of economic policy;

• rapidly expanding new technological capacities and knowledge to transition to a 21st-century economy;
• expanding human capabilities at scale;
• path-changing trade-offs to catalyse the next phase of SA’s development;
• nurturing a corruption-free, high-performance state built on meritocracy and innovation; and
• changing the nature of politics.

Time is of the essence and the window of opportunity is narrowing for all South Africans to work together towards the SA we all imagined was possible in 1994.

Mcebisi Jonas is the former deputy finance minister of SA, a position he held from 2014 until 2016, in addition to being a member of the National Assembly. Jonas was born in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape and has been politically active since the age of 14. After returning to SA from exile in the 1990s, he served in the Eastern Cape government before being appointed to the National Treasury.

EVENT DETAILS

• Date: Tuesday August 13 (6pm for 6.30pm)
• Venue: Exclusive Books, Hyde Park, c/o Jan Smuts Ave and William Nicol Drive, Johannesburg
• Guest speaker: Redi Tlhabi
• RSVP: events@exclusivebooks.co.za 

Article provided by Pan Macmillan