Familiarity with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration reveals that the favoured approach to governance takes the form of a “social compact”. In his recent weekly letter to the nation, the president reiterated his call for constructing a “comprehensive” social compact that will reflect “genuine consensus … among all social partners”.  This consensus will commit government to “… improve the climate for the private sector to invest, implement state support measures to protect society’s most vulnerable, and spearhead poverty eradication programmes”. In return, the government will expect “complementary actions by business”, including investment targets and, if it is to be a “comprehensive accord”, presumably an agreement to restrain price increases…..more