The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Saliem is an independent writer and columnist for SACSIS based in Cape Town.
He is currently active in the sustainable energy field and works for the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Saliem was previously a senior lecturer at the Department of Public Administration and Planning and associate Director for the Center for Renewable and Sustainable Energy at the University of Stellenbosch (2007-2008) where he taught a course on renewable energy policy and financing of renewable energy projects.
Saliem previously worked for Lereko Energy (Pty) Ltd (2006) an investment company focusing on project development and financial arrangements for renewable energy, biofuels, waste and water sectors. He also served as Director of the World Conservation Union South Africa (IUCN-SA) office for eight years (1998-2005).
Saliem has served on a number of Boards. Between 2002-2005 he served as a chair of the Board of the National Botanical Institute. He also served on the board of the Fair Trade in Tourism Initiative, and was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Reporting Initiative, based in Amsterdam.
He currently serves on the advisory board of Inspired Evolution One, a private fund involved in clean technology.
Saliem's qualifications are: B.Sc Honours molecular biology (WITS), Masters in Environmental Science, Wye College London. He also completed a senior executive management course at Harvard University in 2000.
Saliem Fakir -
The Free State students who made the racist video are perhaps breathing a sigh of relief that they’re no longer the centre of the world’s attention. It was too much for them too soon. The world was shocked then too.
At least they too know, no matter how revolting their little show, malicious prejudice conflicts with the idea of democracy and they are not alone in harbouring ghastly prejudices. They have something in common with all of us. Even a quiet prejudice seeds it’s...
Saliem Fakir -
First came Zuma, which seemed to scare a lot of people, then the atrocious matric results, then Eskom, the slow disappearance of the Scorpions, the Zimbabwe crisis, then the disgraceful saga at the SABC, the anarchy at the ANC Youth League conference, racism at Free State university, the food crisis and now xenophobia.
There are a few other issues not worth adding to this litany as the point has been made. Everywhere we look is a seemingly unending verve of one crisis after another....
Saliem Fakir -
There is no doubt that we live in an uncertain period. Since 9/11, the world has changed. Global governance is in flux and generally speaking, the outcome of our transforming world is still unknown.
The conventional source and centre of power is beginning to shift. This centre of power largely an alliance between the United States (US) and Europe, which Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt aptly called Empire, is what we have come to accept as the de facto world in which we live, by which we...
Saliem Fakir -
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has become an end all, and be all, when we look to economic indicators as a measure of a country's success and progress.
In general, when people speak of GDP, they speak loosely and without meaning.
When the government says it wants to grow the economy by five or six percent, this usually means relative to the GDP growth rates of other high-flying countries. There is always that eye of envy caste upon rival economies.
Everything looks good on the surface...
Saliem Fakir -
To say that inflation targeting as a monetary policy instrument has reached a dead end, is an understatement. It was Jeremy Cronin, the South African Communist Party (SACP) leader, who poignantly noted that perhaps the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni, was overdoing things and that a new vision for economic stimulation is long overdue.
Cronin, the SACP and COSATU have for a long time been told to shut up by the Mbeki camp but have of late become more vocal and strident following...
