Nationlisation - 1

NO MATTER how optimistic you may be about the future of South Africa’s mining industry, the equivocating tone of the speech on nationalisation given on Tuesday by Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu has to be cause for concern.
As my colleague David McKay pointed out, this is the minister who previously told investors that nationalisation wouldn't occur in her lifetime and that the issue wasn't a feature of the ANC government’s agenda.
She’s clearly shifted ground and how some journalists' reports on her speech could claim that Shabangu had moved to “debunk” the debate is beyond me.
But there's worse. Shabangu’s speech clearly indicated the ANC government does not like hearing criticism of nationalisation - no matter how justified that criticism may be.
How else do you take the following comments she made?
"Unfortunately and disappointingly, the response from the private sector and certain commentators to these calls is as follows; if the mines are nationalised 'we will go all the way to the Constitutional Court'; foreign investors will not invest in South Africa; nationalisation is a bad idea; nationalisation has failed elsewhere, learn from Zambia; the State cannot run mines, look at Alexkor; as well as let's have an economic CODESA.”
Every single one of those points she raised is absolutely valid - and correct as far as I am concerned – in the arguments against nationalisation and remedies open to the private sector.
As one of the "commentators" the minister is probably referring to, I can add a couple more points to her list. How about the State Diamond Trader and the damage it has done to the South African diamond cutting industry it was supposed to benefit?
"What is the private sector supposed to do? Not point out the unmitigated disasters that have happened elsewhere...?"
Then, of course, how can we forget government’s refusal in 2000 to allow Eskom to build the next coal-fired power station which led to the power crisis the country now...