A call to the ANC to stop Zuma
IT IS reported the ANC “welcomes” the appointment of inexperienced and unknown David van Rooyen as finance minister, and by extension, the dismissal of experienced and respected former minister Nhlanhla Nene.
This is like saying one welcomes the appointment of a newly graduated doctor to head of surgery or a newly qualified pilot as captain of the latest Airbus. Only in the ANC’s through-thelooking-glass universe does this make sense. It’s as irrational as their other acts: “welcoming”, that is, approving the appointment of a teacher to the highly complex and technical post of SAA chairperson; an engineering degree faker to the head of a multibillion-rand railways procurement programme and a matric certificate faker as chief operating officer of the SABC.
The ANC has taken leave of its senses and it and the president have put the country firmly on a perilous route, that recent investment downgrades and a persistently poor economy, due mainly to own goals, have warned us about.
The Treasury is the most important state department. Stability and sober and intelligent management, unlike elsewhere in Zuma’s administration where incompetence and irrationality abounds and is rewarded, is key to local and international investors and public confidence and long-term growth and development.
Analysts have compared Nene’s firing – for this is what it is – which saw the rand tumble to above R15/$ after the announcement and which almost guarantees foreseeable junk investment ratings and increased capital flight, to apartheid president PW Botha’s Rubicon Speech, which caused a similar reaction at the time and ultimately hastened the end of apartheid.
Apartheid came to an end because the corporations and multinationals of the day saw the situation – sanctions and strife – fatally harmful to their business, and forced the National Party to negotiate. Also, the NP’s FW de Klerk realised they had bankrupted the country.
Post-apartheid South Africa had none of the failings of apartheid rule. We have a constitution that enshrines socio-economic rights, and the ANC had international and local goodwill and support and the irreplaceable Mandela factor. How has it come to this, so quickly? Why have they squandered the peace and Mandela dividend? For the self-aggrandisement of one man, Jacob Zuma.
After six years of Zuma’s presidency – the worst since PW Botha – the country is heading into bankruptcy. The government has already dipped into the contingency reserve. There are the damning escapades of SAA, Eskom, SABC and their office bearers draining resources and energy from the nation. They are not fired, but a diligent and competent minister is?
Botha’s cabinet and inner circle which, led by De Klerk, revolted against his tyrannical rule, but where are similar men and women of the ANC?
Unfortunately, I don’t think they exist. During the past 20 years not one stepped forward, when he or she had influence, to say: “Stop! This is not on”. The ANC treats the public with contempt, and elections notwithstanding, we have little influence to dramatically change the road to perdition we are on.
Once again, big business must come to the “rescue” and shake off their complacency and stupor of the nice little club they currently belong to with the government and unions. As their predecessors did in the 1980s, they must leave their cowardice and timidity behind and tell the ANC like it is: proceed as you are doing, and we shall reach a cliff from which there will be no way back.