Appoint capable fixers regardless of race
After his election as president of the ANC and later of the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised so much. He acted swiftly on the Eskom liquidity and solvency crisis by appointing a new board. Under the spell of Ramaphoria, the country looked to be heading for an economic resurgence.
Buoyed by the transparency of the process of appointing Shamila Batohi as the new head of the national directorate of public prosecutions, and the use of constitutional processes to deal with the rotten leftovers from the Zuma years, all looked good for a while. But this has changed as a result of inertia in dealing with the serious economic problems SA faces.
These include a low growth forecast of 0.6% in 2019, rising unemployment as a result of an increase in labour participation, and retrenchments. Finance minister Tito Mboweni and his deputy, David Masondo, have responsibility for taking SA out of its economic crisis by publishing and accepting input on their economic growth strategy document.
Economic reforms are, by their nature, grounded in competency, capability and credibility. Gen Jan Smuts, Sir William Hoy, Hendrik van der Bijl and Sir Robert Kotze were responsible for much of the infrastructure and many of the institutions the ANC inherited when it came to power, such as Eskom, SAA and Transnet.
Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Trevor Manuel and Mboweni understood that taking an economy out of crisis in the 1990s required competency and capability in institutions.
Today it appears we have two similar reformers in the government: Ramaphosa and Mboweni. Of course, Mboweni has done it before with Mbeki and Manuel.
In his words in parliament on Tuesday, Mboweni said the problem at Eskom was not only financial: “If we are to reduce a complex problem to the lowest common denominator being the financial problem we are not solving the problem. We must appoint the correct board of directors, a competent management team and be in a position to hold everyone accountable for the operations.”
My interpretation of Mboweni’s words was that there was an implied criticism of Pravin Gordhan’s leadership at public enterprises. Three critical state-owned companies
Eskom, SAA and Transnet still have acting CEOs and interim boards, in a country that is in economic crisis and cannot keep the lights on. Yet many of us continue to hope it will all get sorted out.
It is not going to happen without reformers who have surrounded themselves with like-minded people, as we saw with Mbeki, Manuel and Mboweni. Ramaphosa needs to do the same by reshuffling his cabinet and appointing reformers. While I understand many of his cabinet appointments were necessitated by ANC internal politics, he has to put SA first. That means bringing in competent reformers.
Parliament approving another R59bn bailout for Eskom without a competent minister, board or management in place means SA is throwing good money after bad.
Competency needs to be accompanied by capability. In a country where racial identity trumps economics, we need capable individuals fixers with experience, not just paper qualifications irrespective of race or citizenship. We are in a crisis.
On Wednesday, Mboweni will present the medium-term budget policy statement. Unlike last week’s launch of the Integrated Resource Plan 2019, when the wrong document was gazetted, the medium-term budget policy statement has to be on target.
I expect Mboweni to reiterate some of the points that are contained in the policy document, particularly its focus on low-cost energy sources, labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture and tourism, and the goal of returning to a far lower fiscal deficit of 3.8% by financial year 2022.
Mboweni’s presentation should enable Ramaphosa to go to the investment conference in November with renewed confidence, the country’s credibility restored after the finance minister’s fiscal and financial plan and the economic reform package.
It will then be up to the private sector to complement the reform package by investing in SA’s future.
● Mondi is a senior lecturer in the Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences.