Critics lash out at Mboweni
Corruption, attention on state-owned entities among concerns
FINANCE Minister Tito Mboweni has come under pressure in Parliament, with parties saying his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement did not provide the medicine required to fix the ailing economy.
This comes as Mboweni said the economy would grow at less than 1%, the revenue would still have a shortfall of R27 billion, and the debt would stabilise in 2022/23.
Despite outlining some of the programmes to rein in state-owned entities and providing direction on the R50bn stimulus package, parties said Mboweni missed the boat.
The DA’s Alf Lees said the government was pumping more money into the struggling SAA.
“This R5 billion bailout is just the current year’s portion of the R21.7bn that SAA requires in order to be able to continue trading at a loss for the next three years,” said Lees.
He said the R5bn could have been used to increase the child support grant by R34 per month from R410 to R444.
The SACP said it had no illusions about the crisis in the economy.
“The corruption of corporate capture of the state, including the looting as well as the associate governance decay, mismanagement and maladministration, have severely impacted public resources and by no small measure contributed to the multiple crises in which our revenue and stateowned entities were plunged,” said the SACP.
The IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the state gave these entities guarantees to raise money in the capital markets.
Cosatu General-Secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said Mboweni wasted a lot of time talking about the huge public sector wage bill.
“To us that is a non-issue. We got an agreement negotiated over a long time in respect to wage negotiations and working conditions.
“I think he is attacking the wrong people. He should focus more on the people who have huge perks including himself. He should have started at the top with ministers, with MPs.”
Independent economist Thabi Leoka said it was disappointing that the government’s budget deficit had increased, that revenue collection had underperformed, but said the silver lining was that there was a plan to turn things around.
“There’s a lot of focus on infrastructure; re-prioritisation is also a positive,” said Leoka.
She said she was concerned that money had been allocated to turnaround Sars.
“Something needs to be done to fix Sars... this a government entity that was working efficiently. It just shows you that we’ve moved back instead of moving forward.”
Former finance minister Trevor Manuel said Mboweni, in his speech, had focused attention on the matters which needed to be resolved.
“The message is essentially: ‘Let’s fix what we need to fix.’”
While delegates to the ANC’s elective conference at Nasrec adopted new resolutions, including the establishment of a state-owned bank and land expropriation without compensation, Manuel said this was not the time for new policies.
“I’m glad he went back to the constitution and the NDP (National Development Plan), and (the) focus on quality of life issues because that is the core measure.”
Addressing critics within the ANC, especially proponents of the “Radical Economic Transformation”, Manuel said they had to forget about the “airy-fairy stuff”.