Why Wrigglephosa must ace Magashule

President Cyril Ramaphosa has a stressful few days ahead of him. He has to announce new restrictions on Covid-19 hotspots, face his first noconfidence vote in parliament and run an ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting where he simply must

if he is to retain any credibility as a reformer — emerge with a mandate to sideline ANC officebearers facing prosecution.

His economic recovery programme is already in deep trouble. The government wants to delay court proceedings brought by public sector unions over a dispute in which the state has declined to pay the final award of the three-year wage deal in order to save itself almost R40bn.

It wants the delay for two reasons. First, in October’s mini-budget, finance minister Tito Mboweni relaxed the time constraint he had originally set himself to contain the state’s debt. In extending both the time limit for regaining control and the cap at which it would occur (from an 87% debt-to-GDP ratio to over 100%) he conceded there were limits to the amount of government spending he could oblige ministers and the public to live with.

So he shifted more of the burden of the cuts he must make onto public sector pay. The unions were mad enough about not being paid for their third year of increase, which should have started in April. Staring down the barrel of a multiyear pay freeze is something else.

But here’s the thing: the government cannot win this in court. The deal is on paper, signed, sealed and legal as hell, which is why this week it has tried to get the unions to negotiate a new arrangement for 2020 and play for time, hoping to get to court with the unions only in February 2021.

It won’t work, but without some progress, Mboweni’s mini-budget is already dead in the water and we will be heading for a third downgrade in 12 months by early 2021.

Of the rest of Ramaphosa’s recovery plan we have only smoke and mirrors to go by, which is becoming sadly typical of this administration.

He claimed the other day that just a month or so after announcing the plan, 400,000 job opportunities had already occurred. There’s no way of disproving that, but you’d have to be an incurable optimist to believe it.

No doubt infrastructure projects are steaming ahead as we speak, and inclusive new harbours are being carved out of the seabed around the coast.

In another world, the excellent contractor who rebuilt our house cannot find roof sheeting to finish his current jobs before Christmas because part of the Ramaphosa recovery plan involves discouraging imports of hot-rolled steel coil so local steel firms can sell their more expensive coil into the local market.

Except they aren’t making it. Or not enough of it. Result? Corrugated iron roof sheeting is as rare as hens’ teeth, and some South Africans (my contractor’s wholesaler included) are closing their businesses down while other South Africans are losing their jobs.

The fact is that Ramaphosa is in trouble, economically and politically. The country is in agony and Covid-19 cases are again rising fast in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.

There should be enough ventilators this time, but there aren’t always enough beds. Hours before writing this column I saw my GP, who told me he had not been able to find an intensive-care bed for a heart-attack victim earlier this week anywhere between Hermanus and Cape Town.

It ’ s not that they’re full of Covid-19 patients again, just that they ’ re open for all diseases again. That’s where the pressure is. The only credible restrictions on economic activity would be those to protect the health services.

Still, the president will easily win the no-confidence vote planned for Thursday. It is being brought by the African Transformation Movement (ATM), a ludicrous party of two MPs formed around, if not by, Jimmy (Mzwanele) Manyi. Remember him? A sort of stalking horse for Jacob Zuma, which might be what the vote is really all about anyway.

The real Zuma faction will be in evidence at the weekend ANC NEC meeting, at which Ramaphosa must prevail. As a politician, he is a wriggler — a little bit here and little there. Keep the party united. All political leaders everywhere say the same thing.

But the best of them know when that is not enough any more. Ramaphosa promised the country months ago that ANC leaders accused in criminal cases would have to stand down. There has been an outright rebellion against that, most spectacularly by ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, who has publicly announced he will not step down despite being accused in a huge fraud case. Ramaphosa can wriggle a bit he has been effusive in his praise recently of the organisational skills of former Bosasa beneficiary Nomvula Mokonyane — but only a clear victory at the NEC meeting will do.

He has a strong new legal opinion to back him, and if he doesn ’ t walk out of that meeting with Magashule’s head under his arm you’ll know the anticorruption drive is a thing of the past.

Bruce is a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail.