EASE THE QUANTITY OF BOOZE

You can see why foreign investors would be a little skittish about buying the whole “new dawn” lark, lock, stock and barrel.

Just when you think the right sort of decisions are being taken, into the building swaggers ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule with, wait for it, a bonkers idea to “explore quantity easing measures to address intergovernmental debts to make funds available for developmental purposes”. Apparently, this was a statement meant to sum up the decisions taken at the party’s national executive committee lekgotla last weekend.

Based on that statement, the “quantity” that could clearly do with some “easing” might be found behind the bar.

Unless, of course, the ANC meant “quantitative easing” — a plan to get the Reserve Bank to print more money. Why, you ask? Well, it seems the ANC wants this extra cash to pay for the government’s debt, so as to release more cash to those other state departments that want it. Presumably, the extra dosh would be for those departments that have always had a rather shaky handle on austerity. Think Nomvula Mokonyane e-mailing a grocery list to Bosasa.

The question is, how did this emerge from the party’s top structure? If Cyril Ramaphosa, Paul Mashatile, Tito

Mboweni and Pravin Gordhan signed off on it, we’re really in trouble.

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