There is an almost unbearable cacophony of voices screaming for finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s head. He must go, they clamour, and he must go now. But these calls don’t make sense.
We now need to confront the fact that ministers can be hired and fired in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government and yet nothing will change. Kick out Godongwana and replace him with a genius, and things will toddle on the same.
Things will change only when Ramaphosa abandons his hands-off approach to governing. Unless he takes charge and begins to lead with purpose and decisiveness, budgets and new laws will be kicked around like the political footballs they’ve become.
Some of us said as early as February 19, the day the budget presentation was cancelled for the first time in South Africa’s democratic history, that this was a fiasco. Ramaphosa was meant to chair that fateful cabinet meeting where ministers revolted and forced Godongwana to go back to the drawing board. Where was Ramaphosa, the captain of the ship, beforehand? Did he not know that a whammy of a VAT hike was coming until that meeting? What did he do to offset potential damage from such a move?
He sat on his hands waiting for a commercial flight after the presidential jet was declared not airworthy — and missed that meeting.
The whole budget debacle continued for two more months. Markets were panicky, investors jittery. The populace fretted at the prospect of a VAT hike.
During this time, the president went to the ANC parliamentary caucus and boasted that if one’s enemies (meaning the DA) were doing themselves damage, they shouldn’t be disturbed. As the Western Cape High Court judgment on Sunday showed, the man was shooting himself in both feet. Several times.
I’m not saying Godongwana is blameless. The minister has in the past two months taken a department with a stellar reputation (the National Treasury) and turned it into a joke. From the day he and hapless minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni sat in front of reporters, chortling about the sage advice given to them by South African Revenue Service commissioner Edward Kieswetter and asking “Uhamba nini yena? [When is he going?]”, it was clear that South Africa is in deep trouble. When the fate of an official such as Kieswetter is in the hands of tittle-tattlers, your government is going nowhere. Neither Godongwana nor the scandal-prone Ntshavheni apologised to Ramaphosa or to Kieswetter. They think it’s OK to act in such an uncouth manner.
Ramaphosa and Godongwana’s worst sin has been to turn the Treasury into an entity where every projection is a giant work of fiction
Ramaphosa and Godongwana’s worst sin has been to turn the Treasury into an entity where every projection is a giant work of fiction. Every year, growth projections and revenue targets are turned into mush as we miss them again and again. If the Treasury tells you South Africa’s GDP growth will be 1%, then be sure to make yours 0.2%. Now the IMF says South Africa’s public debt levels will not stabilise, as the Treasury has projected in successive budgets, but will rise to 88% of GDP by 2030.
So, sure, go ahead and fire Godongwana. If you do that and leave Ramaphosa and his hands-off style in place, you can rope in any of the numerous people who have been mentioned as potential replacements, but nothing will change.
Ramaphosa and the ANC have to acknowledge and accept that they are in a coalition with the DA. Then they have to acknowledge and accept that this year’s budget has to be a co-operative effort with the DA. It cannot be an ANC budget. That ship has sailed. Once an economic and fiscal framework is agreed upon, we will have a budget supported by the two main players in the GNU and it will breeze through parliament.
Even that is just one aspect of the whole reset of the GNU that has to take place. In the final analysis, our GNU does not have an agreed-upon action plan. The budget snafu is just a symptom of that failure to agree to terms of engagement right from the beginning.
Let’s fix the real problem. Let’s properly reset the GNU with new, clear rules and goals. Then let’s install a captain (Ramaphosa or whoever) whose job will be to pursue and fulfil these goals with vigour. Then the job of finance minister will be the least of our problems.
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