Wrack and ruin

DURING the Mandela era, the South African economy was strong and growing, but the advent of the Zuma era saw the rise of the same old failed mantra of socialism over capitalism driving the political discourse.

Today our economy is in a shambles; unemployment and debt are massive and powerful politicians are being investigated for involvement in the largest scandals of fraud and corruption in South Africa’s history.

When Zuma gained the presidency he sold himself to the electorate as the leader who would bring economic growth, heal national divisions and unite everyone behind a common vision.

This was Mandela’s “rainbow nation” promise; history will show that our president has betrayed Mandela’s legacy.

Leaving aside Zuma’s venal nature, his real impact on the economy has been his futile socialist policies and unrealistic promises of redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor – an illogical attempt to stimulate the economy in order to make the poor richer, a classic cart before the horse policy. But the only ones who really got rich were Zuma and his corporate and political friends.

All his so-called stimulus has achieved is to increase government spending and create deficits and debt.

He increased the minimum wage and the benefits of social programmes, increased salaries for an already bloated civil service and dampened the incentives for real wealth creation, employment and growth driven by business.

He created jobs for political allies in the name of good governance, at the same time dismissing all arguments and warnings from business by labelling them as enemies of transformation.

Now, to exacerbate the problem, he fires Gordhan, the one person in his cabinet who can and will administer the medicine.

The result: government spending keeps going up and we now see the unsustainable and shrinking economy implode.

Zuma must fall. Pat Fisher Woodstock