Long road, visible at last

For years, many have called me one of South Africa's most positive business leaders.

- MIKE ABEL

I've always accepted that description with a smile, not because positivity is my default, but because it is a deliberate discipline.

Real optimism depends on realism. The two must walk together. Without one, you drift. Without the other, you stall. But together, they create lift. They elevate.

As we close this year, I sense something rare: a rare kind of hope that feels earned, not imagined. Not the recycled optimism of past eras. Not rainbow nostalgia. Not hype. Not denial.

Just a quiet, steady conviction that something is genuinely turning in South Africa's story.

There are signs of real movement. After years of erosion, we are beginning to see the scaffolding of recovery.

South Africa received its first sovereign credit upgrade in two decades. S&P Global lifted our local currency from BB to BB+ with a positive outlook. Debt to gross domestic product has stabilised below 80%. Inflation is within the target band. The rand has strengthened by nearly 10% against the dollar.

Eskom, improbably, recorded its first profit in eight years. The lights have stayed on for over a year, not by luck but through reform, private generation and renewed accountability.

Two consecutive primary budget surpluses show a state rediscovering fiscal discipline.

These are not isolated numbers. They mark a transition from crisis management to real management.

Institutions are rediscovering their backbone. Governance, long hollowed out, is beginning to reassert itself.