Wild words leading to instability
DEPUTY President Cyril Ramaphosa has appealed for an end to “wild and sensational statements” that may destabilise the economy in comments seemingly directed at asset manager Futuregrowth, a day after it announced the suspension of plans to lend to South African parastatals.
Responding to a question from DA leader Mmusi Maimane on the “war” between the Treasury and Presidency, Ramaphosa said the events of the past few weeks had caused concern among South Africans.
This comes after Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan faced a demand from the Hawks to present himself for questioning amid a stand-off with a number of parastatals over governance issues and the announcement by Futuregrowth that it would ditch plans to lend more than R1.8 billion to Stateowned enterprises, including Eskom.
The asset manager cited concerns over how the SOEs were being run as the reason for its decision, and was followed yesterday by Denmark’s Jyske Bank AS, which also pulled the plug on loans to Eskom.
Despite an assurance from Eskom’s chief financial officer, Anoj Singh, that it had secured 57% of its borrowing requirement of R69bn for the financial year 2016/17, and that it would not be affected by Futuregrowth’s decision, the move prompted a plea from the governing ANC that the asset manager should “engage with the relevant ministries and parastatals to discuss the concerns they have, and together find a solution in the interest of the economy and country”.
It said the “generalisation” that there were governance challenges besetting the parastatals snubbed by Futuregrowth – Eskom, Transnet, Sanral, the Land Bank, the Industrial Development Corporation and the Development Bank of SA – were “erroneous and unfortunate”.
Ramaphosa said during question time in Parliament that government and non-government entities should “take care that whatever they do should not lead to destabilising our economy, to getting people to believe that the government was not functioning well”.
“We also called on all and sundry from making wild and sensational statements about whatever they may perceive is happening, because it is the statements that also exacerbate the situation,” Ramaphosa said.
He said South Africa was a “multidimensional democracy” which included non- government entities.
“We’d like to believe that the processes that are now under way to deal with this matter will put it to bed, and we will be able to proceed in a way where there is decorum, in a way where one entity of government is not at war with another entity of government.”
“That is our objective and we would like to see government entities functioning well, but similarly, we would like to see all other non-governmental entities that may feel tempted to join the fray, desisting from doing so, so that we can have a situation of proper decorum as we proceed to manage affairs in our country as well as the economy,” Ramaphosa said.