Anthea Jeffery
Dr Anthea Jeffery holds law degrees from Wits, Cambridge and London universities, and is the Head of Policy Research at the IRR. She has authored 12 books, including Countdown to Socialism - The National Democratic Revolution in South Africa since 1994, People’s War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa and BEE: Helping or Hurting? She has also written extensively on property rights, land reform, the mining sector, the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system, and a growth-focused alternative to BEE.
Articles By This Author
To fix SA mining, start by fixing the law
South Africa’s mining industry is becoming “uninvestable.” The country has among the most valuable mineral endowments in the world, but is nevertheless battling to attract new investment – particularly for the exploration vital to the industry’s future.
The BEE billionaires who should “hang their heads in shame”
In mid-May 2026 President Cyril Ramaphosa told Parliament that critics of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) “should hang their heads in shame”. Though they constantly claimed that BEE was “a holdback for economic growth,” the mining industry showed this to be “false” and “just a slogan.”
The unconstitutionality – and economic folly – of Treasury’s proposed exchange control rules
The Treasury wants to replace its 1961 exchange control rules with new regulations to control capital flows. Its primary objective, however, is to bring bitcoin and other crypto currencies under state control.
Denying Britain’s achievements in abolishing slavery
South Africa’s draft history curriculum ignores 5,000 years of African enslavement and focuses instead on the roughly 300 years of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It
Full story of African enslavement excluded from draft history curriculum
A Ministerial History Task Team appointed by Angie Motshekga – a former African National Congress (ANC) minister of basic education – has prepared a draft history curriculum with a clear anti-Western and anti-capitalist emphasis. That ideological bias is evident in many aspects of the proposed curriculum. However, it is particularly pronounced in how the draft deals with the history of slavery in Africa.
A draft history curriculum to rob future pupils of any real knowledge of ANC violence against black civilians
The Department of Basic Education wants to introduce a new history curriculum for Grades 4 to 12. On 20 March 2026 it released a draft that is hundreds of pages long for comment within the absurdly short period of 30 days. At the last minute, it extended this period for another 30 days.
SA needs sweeping labour-law reform, not tinkering at the edges
South Africa needs bold reforms to overcome its unemployment crisis. Instead, the Department of Employment and Labour has put forward for public comment a raft of minor changes. A few of these are positive, but most are likely to deter job generation.
More jobs for pals under a damaging new water licensing system
The water crisis South Africa has long faced is looming ever larger as persistent water shedding spreads from rural areas to Johannesburg and other metropoles.
Slamming the brakes on a stalled economy via the Licensing Bill
The Business Licensing Bill of 2025, an initiative of the Department of Small Business Development, is exactly the opposite of what South Africa needs to
Three key questions for mining minister Gwede Mantashe
In 2024 mining exploration spending in South Africa dropped to R779.5m, the lowest figure since 1993. This paltry sum, as investment banker Paul Miller notes,