Justice Malala on Government Spending In South Africa

The South African center-right journalist opines that African National Congress leaders will ignore the finance minister's plan to restrain the country's out-of-control government spending: "I know FM [Financial Mail] readers are pleased with finance minister Pravin Gordhan's budget policy framework [to reduce government spending and bring the budget deficit - which is 7.6% of GDP - under control so South Africa retains its credit rating]. Heck, now you can invest R500m [US$66 million] overseas, so what's the beef? Anyway, you wouldn't want to invest that kind of moolah anywhere else in the world so the man has got you sussed, no? But I'm not sure I am that pleased. Look, if you had closed your ears, you would have picked up that the man actually made a lot of Trevor Manuel-sounding noises. Is this what Polokwane was all about - to have a budget that essentially caters for people like me while the masses continue to be poor? It just goes to show that all those people who said the Zuma administration was the antithesis of the Mbeki administration were wrong. It puts all hacks like me - who banged on about the Left and the Right of the ANC - in a bit of a pickle because these guys are pretty much the same, except that in the case of the Zuma administration, clearly no-one is going to listen to Gordhan."

Mr. Malala continues his commentary: "The finance minister clearly pointed out that government would eliminate the rather large budget deficit over the next three years through growth and prudent spending. He said there would be no new taxes unless the growth did not come through. But before you could say 'prudence' there was communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda rushing off to announce to all and sundry that an extra 1% tax was looming - to pay for the excellent services of the SA Broadcasting Corp. I will now give you a chance to pick yourself up off the floor before I go on. Nyanda is the same minister who was the first to rush to the trough and kit himself out with two very large cars. He then defended the expenditure by saying they were the tools of his trade. Yeah, right, including the expensive television set he fitted in one of them. Prudent government spending, indeed. So no change there then. Poor Pravin. I have to say I feel sorry for the guy. How is he supposed to make these guys toe the line while they still think government is an opportunity to get rich?"

More: "Even President Jacob Zuma is not paying any mind to Pravin's budget. He said the day after the budget that HIV/Aids was an emergency with no money allocated to it. So very soon he will be telling Gordhan to ignore the budget and give him the funds. And we haven't even mentioned the R100bn [US$13.3 billion] for the National Health Insurance scheme."