Ayabonga Cawe, author of The Economy on Your Doorstep and New Settler or Old Tenant?, is the Chief Commissioner of the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC), South Africa’s trade regulator. Trained as a development economist, Ayabonga has published widely in the areas of industrial policy, inequality, labour market policy, local government, and black economic empowerment.
Over the last decade, he has been engaged in a series of landmark economic policy developments as a researcher and advisor. He sat on the National Minimum Wage Advisory Panel appointed by then Deputy President and Nedlac in 2016, which advised on the R20/hour national minimum wage proposal. He also sat on the VAT zero-rating review panel tasked by the South African Minister of Finance in 2018, to consider the expansion of the list of food and non-food items exempted from value added tax. He also led a Nedlac-commissioned team that studied workplace income differentials to advise on the amendments to the Companies Act. He has also been involved in a team, alongside the Department of Employment and Labour and the ILO, developing the South African national employment policy. Ayabonga was a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council between 2019 and 2024, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa. He also served for a period as part-time advisor to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition.
He is an actively engaged commentator as well, having written a regular column for Business Day for the last decade. He was also host of the popular talk show, Metro FM Talk on Metro FM, South Africa’s largest urban commercial radio and is a multiple award nominated talk show host.
He is a Sessional Lecturer in the Applied Development Economics Honours programme at the School of Economics and Finance at Wits University.
Ayabonga holds an M. Com (Cum Laude) in Development Theory and Policy from Wits.