Cutting through the noise: Alec Hogg's five signals on South Africa

By BizNews editor Alec Hogg's count, South Africans have bolted nine gigawatts of solar onto their roofs, more than three times what the state's own renewables programme has delivered. There are more than three private security guards for every police officer. And on the road past Richards Bay, he and his wife clocked five kilometres of trucks waiting to get into the harbour. In the opening keynote of the 19th International Business Conference at Arabella, Alec told around 300 business academics that the noise around South Africa hides a clear signal: the collapse of an ideology driven by people who were passionate but, in his words, economically ignorant. He set out five signals, from privatisation by stealth and regulators under strain to coalition politics, the collapsing cost of intelligence and a fragmenting world order, and explained why they leave him more excited about the country, not less. He closed with what Socrates, Warren Buffett and the late Bill Lynch taught him about acting when you will never have the full picture.