Rob Davies

He has a look at it.

In the era before Minister Patel, Minister Rob Davies would sign off on those fairly quickly.

And the reason for that is ITAC's done the investigation.

Then the Minister of Finance is the final person to sign off and it would then be implemented and the change would happen, whatever that might be.

He has a look at it.

In the era before Minister Patel, Minister Rob Davies would sign off on those fairly quickly.

And the reason for that is ITAC's done the investigation.

Then the Minister of Finance is the final person to sign off and it would then be implemented and the change would happen, whatever that might be.

Uh, my next question to you, uh, Nimrod, I think we have spoken a lot on this point, [chuckles] but, uh, the initiative for APORD, right? I'm curious to know about the main actors.

I've heard accounts that you went to Rob Davies to seek support or funding.

I'm just wondering even how was that process like, for example, in terms of support.

I'm asking about supportive academics and institutions that were instrumental in the APORD's creation and its direction.

So the first, if I deal with the policy context at the time, the point at which APORD was established was, I think, really a point at which there was a lot of disillusionment with the kind of economic policy direction that had been taken in the country, and a search for alternatives.

And that partly manifested itself in the composition of cabinet members, ministers, deputy ministers.

So I worked very closely with Rob Davies and others.

At that point, he was Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, and he was very supportive both of developing an industrial policy, I mean, in fact, you know, he kind of really drove that process, but also receptive to ideas about how to build the capacity to develop and implement industrial policy, and more broadly, to kind of broaden the thinking around economic policy.