ANC mines pit of despair for a few rands more
In the space of a few days earlier this month, two interesting things happened. First, ANC veteran Mavuso Msimang wrote ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula a letter of resignation from the party citing, among other things, its indulgence of corrupt leaders.
And then Roger Jardine — most recently the chair of FirstRand, and a pillar of the newish business establishment
— launched a new “movement” called Change Starts Now. At its launch a week ago, like Msimang he denounced the current ANC, and I was told by a member of his team he would register Change Starts Now as a political party ahead of the 2024 elections.
Neither should have bothered intervening — Msimang especially. After a sharp exchange with Mbalula — in which Msimang (now in his eighties) called him an
“embarrassment ”— he later met the same embarrassment and was persuaded to withdraw his resignation. Just before Jardine’s launch, I asked the same team member if Msimang would be joining Change Starts Now. “No,” I was told, “but he’s a friend.”
Well, Jardine now finds himself launched into the political fray, courtesy of some big funders of the DA, with his “friend” Msimang firmly back in the ANC. It is a lousy start, stacked upon a lamentable launch. A week has since passed, during which we have heard not a word more from Change Starts Now. I would be amazed if we hear another. The idea was to find Jardine a place in or near the DA, but I doubt there’ll be room for him or his politics.
One of the things Jardine stressed during his launch was the need to provide adequate public health care, as if this were a profound goal. But in the Western Cape the DA is already doing a pretty good job at it. Did he perhaps not know? I took a friend to the public hospital in Hermanus a few weeks ago. It was squeaky clean, and the staff were attentive, thoughtful and efficient.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, I had four vaccinations at Lentegeur
Hospital, a public institution in
Mitchells Plain. It was brilliant and, again, spotless. The public clinic in Stanford is clean and efficient. A friend who recently used the public clinic in Ladismith was astonished at the quality of the care he received there.
So how hard can this stuff be?
Does Jardine have a plan? What is it? This is no time to be sitting on the pot. The ANC is going to run away with all the country’s money in a bid to stay in power and, while the established opposition fights among itself and arriviste offerings such as Jardine’s try to navigate our treacherous political waters without getting wet, we are barely able to breathe.
Now we hear the Treasury and the Reserve Bank are close to agreeing on a way to use the Bank’s foreign exchange reserves to fund government operations. The Bank makes a paper profit when the rand falls against the dollar (which it does constantly). We have forex reserves of about $60bn (about R1.1-trillion), painstakingly built up over two decades.
The amount of rands this $60bn is worth has increased. But to give the state the money, the Bank could have to sell up to half of its actual dollar reserves, making us vulnerable to currency speculation the moment markets sense we no longer have the dollars to fight back.
The government needs the money. It badly miscalculated this year’s spending and needs to close the resulting budget deficit. Still, this is the equivalent of using your offshore investments to buy an expensive new car.
We must pay public servant salaries. Then we must pay Karpowership for the paltry 700MW of electricity its 20-year contract will be able to provide (not enough to even reduce one stage of load-shedding). Eskom has just asked the Treasury for permission to sign the contracts with the Turkish company. Then we are going to buy 2,500MW of nuclear power, says the electricity minister, and then we are going to introduce the National Health Insurance scheme, which will cost more than R500bn a year. Little wonder rumour has the finance minister wanting to get out.
Perhaps Jardine could help. Perhaps the combined opposition could help. More likely, we are on our own. The last I heard, the DA was mildly approving of Karpowership, querying only the length of the contract.
I’d be interested in a promise that we will simply not honour absurd contracts once the party that entered into them is no longer in power. That we will reverse unaffordable policies, no matter how noble their intent. And that we will start treating the taxes we collect from hardworking citizens with some respect.
The ANC is going to run away with all the country’s money in a bid to stay in power