Press repeat and go mad

Albert Einstein is often credited with proclaiming: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” So when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a stimulus package two weeks ago aimed at energising our economy, I contrasted that to weekend media reports of an intended R59bn state bail-out for SAA, the SA National Roads Agency and the SA Post Office.

With the SA Revenue Service expected to underachieve this fiscal year, it is unclear where the government will obtain funds for this “stimulus package”. Moreover, statistics show that 55,000 jobs were lost in the first quarter and more cuts are on the cards. Implats recently announced it will shed 13,000 more jobs.

Also difficult to understand is the outcome of the recent cabinet lekgotla. Clearly, ANC policy is not only obscure but parsimoniously insignificant. How could it ignore the insecurity and perils of incompetent cadre deployment? The stateowned enterprises (SOEs) are proof of its failure.

Former British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said in 1874: “There can be economy only where there is efficiency.” Malusi Gigaba, our erstwhile finance minister, described several SOEs as being “in a precarious state”. He wasn’t joking.

As Lukanyo Mnyanda said in his column (ANC’s flip-flopping puts economy at risk, August 13), “as far as the SOEs are concerned, the facts have largely not changed. And where they have, it’s been for the worse.” He was, of course, referring to SAA and Eskom, which are bankrupt.

The platitudes and sloganeering by the ANC continue when the country desperately needs ingenious concepts that are proven, not the usual rhetoric as proxy for policy.

As Mnyanda correctly points out, “it will just undermine the government’s fiscal credibility”. The question is, is the ANC showing signs of insanity?

Nathan Cheiman Northcliff