Rich feel the bailout heat
Finance minister’s dark mutterings about a wealth tax to refill his empty state coffers send ripples of fear through the top table
Don’t feel too hard done by if some of your rich friends aren’t as chirpy as they used to be. Try some empathy. The poor sods are under the cosh. You see, there is just no money in the republic. No, seriously, there is nothing in the public purse. Zilch. Zero. That’s what finance minister Nhlanhla Nene said in his mini-budget speech last week. Do you think the rest of cabinet cared?
The finishing touches to Nkandla would still go on. The bailing out of state-owned enterprises would still go on. Nene warned darkly that the money would have to come from somewhere.
This is the point at which he looked at some of his wealthy cabinet colleagues. There have been dark mutterings about a wealth tax for a while, but this time it is not any old guy with a microphone in front of him. No sirree. This time it’s the finance minister saying this.
“I have asked for further advice on wealth taxes,” Nene said. You could hear the shivers and the knocking knees from Sandhurst to Constantia via Bantry Bay. The fact that the ANC had said the same thing two weeks ago at its big indaba in Midrand did not matter.
After all, the party of the people likes to make grand declarations (free education for all, it said in 1955, and here we are in 2015 and students are waving the IOU in front of President Jacob Zuma’s unsmiling face).
When it is the minister of finance who says this stuff, watched eagerly by the ratings agencies, then you know that things are getting serious.
Which means that February, when the minister delivers his budget, could be a bit upsetting to our wealthy friends. Actually, now I think about it, it could be upsetting to all of us.
Because how is the minister going to target just the überrich? He will have to go for the middle tier too.
You can’t blame the guy. That cash guzzler SA Airways got a bailout from him, and they will be demanding another one, given the fact that there is no corporate governance there. And if you think Eskom will not ask for another bailout you are joking. Plus the students have managed to get concessions of R2,6bn from Zuma. It’s all go. The only people who are not getting any concessions are the people who actually work — you, dear reader.
After the minister’s minibudget I decided to go and observe some wealthy people. I hadn’t been to the Hyatt Regency in a while, so my friend and I decided to hop along there for breakfast.
There was a time when every conceivable big deal in Jo’burg was initiated or concluded at the Hyatt. Of course, at that time there were about five big black businessmen and 100 white ones. Now things have changed. There is lots more black money around, so people no longer have to all meet at the Hyatt. If they do, they don’t all know each other. That’s progress.
The Hyatt clientele is international and local. A Nigerian friend was there, meeting a large Free State farmer.
The Hyatt breakfast is superefficient. You do it all yourself — the buffet sags under a smorgasbord of fruit, cereals and hot foods. You order whatever else you need from the attentive chefs. The eggs are done to perfection. The juices are cold. You call for tea, and it is exactly as you want it.
Here, everything works. After an hour you rise, full to the brim, and get out to meet the challenges of the day. You glance at the bill. Five hundred rand for breakfast for two? Maybe the wealthy, and the corporates, should be taxed more.