What is in a number?

Ihave since learnt that if you want people to accept a certain proposition, you just have to tell the world that researchers say it is so. Or the 100 top scientists say it thusly and the whole world will tend to believe what you are proposing without really interrogating it. One thing we are so used to accepting as fact without interrogating is the whole issue of Debt-to-GDP ratio. The nation takes comfort in the fact that we have not yet reached the levels deemed critical by the leading economists and researchers in the field. We take comfort if the country accumulates more debt while we are below that ratio; a single figure acts as a determinant of the nation’s comfort to accumulating more debt. That is quite worrying, hence today I am going to weigh in on the issues of debt sustainability, what it really means. Let us look beyond this one ratio.

The Debt-to-GDP ratio is the metric comparing a country’s public debt to its gross domestic product (GDP). By comparing what a country owes with what it produces, the Debt-to-GDP ratio reliably indicates that particular country’s ability to pay back its debts. Often expressed as a percentage, this ratio can also be interpreted as the number of years needed to pay back debt, if GDP is dedicated entirely to debt repayment. Note

SDebt-to-GDP ratio

OME issues are more prevalent than others, merely because they are an unending battle for many families and for many people who have to fight them every day and gender-based violence (GBV) is one of them. There are many angles in which this subject has been looked from and mostly as a means for preventative measures, yet this has not stopped the cruel and hideous acts from worming through the lives of many.

It is unfortunate that this is a cancer we only seem to remember and quickly place a plaster over when the pain surges through, to cover up the illness from the guilt that many times we are silent as though the problem has stopped. We can argue that it is a reflection of selective outrage, or merely it symbolises the defeat of many people who continue to suffer unheard stories in the hands of their spouses.

Understand

While it is imperative to understand that GBV is inclusive of violence from women towards men, the best way to look at it is to break it down in its broadness and so the question of today’s spectrum in GBV is, how do parents – especially mothers - teach men that this is a metric to use if a country hopes to focus all its resources on debt repayments; more due diligence is required before we give the Finance minister the green light to borrow more money. Albeit the fact that we have not yet reached the golden 60 per cent of debt on GDP, what does this really mean? The more the number increases approaching the 60 per cent, the more of welfare and capital projects we need to forego as a country just to be in a position to service the debt, unless we find new sources of wealth and revenue. Otherwise, we cannot have our cake and eat it. We cannot accumulate more debt and still maintain this high level of recurring expenditures and capital spending, it just cannot be done, and it is a trade-off type of scenario.

Better matric

We need the Finance Ministry to be frank with the nation and present a better measure, so that our comfort levels are founded on a more rounded independent analysis. We need to have faith in the people to be of sound mind to use their vote or vote with their feet if the Finance Ministry is making decisions that are not in their interest.

This is the basic guiding principle in public finance and public sector economics; this is the relationship that links the taxpayer to the public finance machinery. We cannot take comfort in accumulating more debt based on our local Debt-to-GDP ratio being lower than some matric prescribed by some researchers (ie 45 per cent < 60 per cent). Albeit the fact that we have a Debt-to-GDP ratio of 45 per cent, which is less than the 60 per cent prescribed by the IMF and other Bretton Woods institutions. We need to localise the numbers and work within what is feasible for us as an economy. Politicians come and go and administrations

to be abusive?

It is both fortunate and unfortunate that a woman is the pride of society, for reasons accorded – because the same woman has the power to break or make. Now, many are wondering why it is even an option that parents contribute towards abusive men existing in our society and the answer is that in every problem, the first infiltrator is at the root of the problem and the root of the human being is a parental figure.

When a child is born, their first figure is their parents and children are like sponges in their early development, they learn and impart information and principles that create a foundation of some of the beliefs and perspectives they are likely to choose as they grow up. If the foundation is poor, so is the product likely to be.

Issue

The issue is not necessarily that parents can be abusive towards each other in front of the children that teaches them to be abusive, nor is this to dismiss the fact that this is one of the biggest fundamental umbrellas – but not to focus on it per se. There are other smaller things, that while presumed trivial, make big impacts and statements in the development of the child and their relationship with abusive traits and an abusive nature that are planted by parents.

The matter of fact is that bad parenting has nothing to do with the parent as an individual and so, in essence, a person can be a good parent and still instil bad mannerisms and traits because they see it as a norm. For example, the boy child is constantly coddled and brought up to believe that authority means being coddled change every five years, however, the nation is left to carry the burden of all this debt that is acquired across the different administrations.

Domestic conditions

At the bare minimum, we need to be more cognisant of domestic conditions and we should look at the following variables; interest rate on the debt, budget deficit as a proportion of GDP, government expenditure as a per cent of GDP, tax as a per cent of GDP, the labour force conditions and the state of technology in the country.

This will help the country in the calculation of the optimal Debt-to-GDP ratio that is composite and can help indicate what is optimal for us as a country. As it stands, the country is battling with the issue of relentless arrears owed to the private sector, cash flow problems that emanated when the SACU revenue sharing formula changed in the early 2000s got amplified with the 2008 financial crisis; in the not so distant past, government had to re-issue a matured bond just to avoid payments because of cash flow problems. At present, the cash flow problems are evident in the delayed payment of student allowances. It is clear, therefore, that, given domestic conditions, we cannot continue pushing the debt envelop to the 60 per cent, we will crush and burn before we get to that golden thresh hold.

Necessary debt

We all acknowledge that the country is at crossroads, some catch 22 financial predicament. We need to accumulate debt that helps us unlock new revenue sources and improves our tax base. Our ability to repay debt hinges on our tax base, the money coming into government coffers not the GDP; so let us not focus on the Debt-to-GDP ratio, it is but a number and not a measure of ability to service the debt.

and served; sisters will wash the dishes, clean, do his laundry because

and while this sounds like every other ‘affectionate’ mothers way of spoiling their son, it is also years of instilling the ideology that the role of a woman in a man’s space is to subordinate without boundaries or limits. So how then do you convince this ‘son’ as a man in society tomorrow, that to treat the role of a woman as more than this is not in any way a reflection of emasculating them or a reason to respond violently to that.

Taught

When a boy child is taught from the little things, from a very tender age, that their gender places them on a pedestal, then how do we convince these boys as men to respect women because women are no less? When a mother’s affection fails to override the ability to understand the son as a child and not as a male, they create a man who will be a problem to the women who have to encounter him, for two reasons. Firstly, this son, as a man, will expect women to submit to their tantrums and needs as a reward for existing and a privilege. Secondly, the son, as a husband, will demand the same tolerance that the mother groomed into them without consequences and when this demand is not being met, what happens to the women who have to face the results of disapproving the narcissist? The mother gets to place toxic affection and instil gender inequality as a right to men and they are also the ones who do not get to live with the results for the rest of their lives – it is the woman who will fall in love with him and the children who will be stuck with him that bear the brunt.