Here’s hoping for a budget miracle

There are many wonderful things to love about our country. But, when it comes to assessing the economy and its prospects, you would have to say that the glass is more half empty than half full. The precipitous decline in South Africa, the country would, had we been a business, got the management talking about serious cutbacks or even closing.

The second alternative is not feasible. You can’t close a country down … but you can watch as it slides into failure. The first alternative – curb your spending, especially on hideously expensive state-owned enterprises and your bloated civil service – has never been an option for the ANC government. That is how it stays in power: jobs for pals and handouts for the rest.

We know all that, yet it’s still shocking to chart the extent of our fall.

Under Nelson Mandela as president, the average annual growth of gross domestic product was 2.7%; unemployment was 25% and government debt (including that inherited from the apartheid era) was 48% of GDP. Under Thabo Mbeki, GDP growth averaged 4.1% annually; unemployment went down to 23.7%, as did debt – to 44.5% of GDP (including apartheid debt).

The Jacob Zuma era saw annual average GDP growth shrink to 1.7%, unemployment rise to 26.7% and debt spiral to 62.2% of GDP.

And, despite his good intentions, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s time in office has seen annual average GDP growth (after Covid-19) of just 0.2%, while unemployment rose further, to 3.5% (third quarter 2020 after lockdowns), while debt increased to 63.3% of GDP.

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni must today try to reverse that. He must find money to combat Covid-19 and fund the economic recovery, while not killing the taxpayer goose which lays the golden egg and which is already choking to death.

Do miracles still happen? Here’s hoping...