Tito needs to pull rabbit out of hat

Whatever happens in parliament today, when Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivers his medium-term budget policy statement, you can bet your last, devalued rand it won’t be boring. The ever-smiling Mboweni – who seems as though he receives daily injections of optimism – has brought levity into the process by tweeting that he wants input from ordinary South Africans on what they think needs to be sorted out.

He added mischievously: “Let us do something unusual which will annoy the Establishment.”

Whether Mboweni is playing to the gallery or is really the sort of person to propose revolutionary new solutions remains to be seen. Certainly, there are those – especially on the left and in the trade union movement – who believe the new finance minister is the quintessential representative of the Establishment. He is accused of being probusiness and anti-people by his opponents.

On the other hand, there are more conservative people who believe his Twitter outbursts on the subject of land in recent months bring into question his suitability for the position of the holder of the nation’s purse strings.

But perhaps his slightly eccentric mannerisms are cover for the sort of ruthless approach to government money which is needed if SA is to avoid becoming just another failed state.

He has already said he wants to cut the civil service and staffing levels in parastatals, because that wage bill is crippling government. At the same time, though, he needs to do a financial conjuring act to try and bridge the near R50 billion revenue gap facing government.

It doesn’t help that the primary money collector, the SA Revenue Service, is in a shambles. There are few tax options left to him, either. It’s going to take a lot more than cheeky Tweets to turn this country around.