Mboweni’s roadmap set to be reworked

REJECTED: ‘UNJUST’ – RULING PARTY’S ALLIANCE PARTNERS

Revamp will ensure economic growth plan is aligned to ANC’s manifesto.

Apolitical analyst yesterday said National Treasury will be forced to adopt some of the ANC alliance’s leftist revamped economic growth policies in order to sustain the Tripartite Alliance.

At a recent council meeting it agreed to assign an economic working group to revamp National Treasury’s growth plan to align it with the ANC’s 2017 manifesto and election promises.

Political analyst Lungani Mthethwa said Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s office was in a corner after failing to engage with alliance partners the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Communist Party (SACP) in the drafting of his growth plan, titled Economic transformation, inclusive growth, and competitiveness: towards an economic strategy for South Africa.

Because the SACP and Cosatu were excluded, “they came up with a policy that seemed unbalanced to the alliance partners which they rejected”.

“For the sustainability of the alliance, Mboweni’s department would have to accept and endorse [Cosatu and SACP’s] revamped growth plan... We are hoping for a balanced structured economic plan that would address all stakeholders,” said Mthethwa.

He said issues of factions within the ANC and alliance also played a factor in the rejection of the growth plan and would further prolong its implementation.

Cosatu and SACP said the ANC would be left to implement the plan.

Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said revamping the growth plan would address injustices that had been committed by Treasury to the voters of the ANC.

He said the plan’s exemption of small enterprises from the national minimum wage implementation and the unbundling of state-owned entities contradicted the ANC election manifesto.

“The main mandate of the revamp is to make sure the economic growth plan is aligned with the manifesto. It will address the needs of people which we believe Mboweni’s plan failed to do,” said Pamla.

At the alliance council meeting last week, the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP agreed to change some contents. They are to announce the names of experts to rework the strategy plan on December 2. –