Bozell sees two industries holding the key to South Africa’s rise
PRETORIA — US Ambassador Brent Bozell III says South Africa could become one of the world’s leading economies if it makes better use of its mineral wealth and tourism appeal. In a 19 October interview with Gabriel Makin of The Common Sense, Bozell argued that the country already has the resources and institutions to prosper. His sharper point concerned investment: Washington wants Pretoria to change how foreign companies can meet empowerment requirements in mining and telecommunications.
The investment rule Washington wants changed
Bozell said the United States had asked South Africa to give mining and telecoms companies access to equity equivalent investment programmes. That would allow a multinational to fund an approved South African project as a way of meeting ownership requirements while retaining its stake in the local business. Bozell described the issue as one on which Washington and Pretoria remained apart.
Starlink illustrates what that could mean in practice. The satellite operator has proposed spending R500 million to connect 5,000 rural schools to the internet if the investment can count towards its empowerment obligations. Within South Africa, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi has backed an equity equivalent route. The telecoms regulator, ICASA, says Parliament would have to amend the Electronic Communications Act before it could fully implement that approach for individual licence holders.
The growth figures behind the ambition
Bozell drew on South Africa’s negotiated transition from apartheid to argue that the country had already achieved something many outsiders would have considered unlikely. When Makin put two contrasting futures to him, Bozell said sound policy could deliver prosperity comparable to that of the United States, while poor choices could push South Africa towards the economic decline experienced by Haiti. He offered no timetable for either outcome.
The South African Reserve Bank’s October outlook gives a more immediate measure of the challenge. It cut its 2026 growth forecast from 1.4% to 1.2% and expects growth to approach 2% by 2029 as structural reforms progress. For businesses weighing expansion, that points to a gradual recovery. For Pretoria, the immediate decision raised by Bozell’s remarks is a narrower one: whether to change the terms on which foreign capital can enter two regulated industries.
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