Destabilising the National Treasury will be the ultimate 'own goal'
30 March 2017
For more than 72 hours South Africans remained none the wiser as to why President Jacob Zuma ordered the National Treasury to summarily end an international road show where, together with labour and business, they were promoting our country to international investors and working hard to defend our credit rating.
The President’s ongoing failure to provide an explanation for this highly provocative act, will raise foreign investors’ and credit rating agencies’ concerns that the South African economy has become a pawn of political infighting, nefarious power plays and self-interest. In the absence of a plausible explanation, it is very difficult not to conclude that the President put his own agenda, which remains unknown to the public, ahead of the country’s interests.
That is not his Constitutional prerogative. His prerogative is to provide dignified leadership in the interests of all South Africans. Instead, his actions have undermined our country at a time when it needs leadership more than ever.
It is not for Business to dictate to the President whom he should appoint as Finance Minister. Nevertheless, this Finance Minister and his team at National Treasury have provided exemplary leadership following the after-shocks of 912. The team at National Treasury has upheld disciplined and prudent fiscal policy. They have worked with other social actors to uphold South Africa’s credit rating and, as a consequence, have ensured the ongoing viability of our social expenditure upon which so many South African rely.
Partnering with business and labour in the CEO Initiative, Treasury have engaged all stakeholders, and started to turn the economic tide. We are just beginning to see the “green shoots” of recovery and they need to be nurtured, not strangled.
Questions remain on whether the President is upholding the letter and the spirit our Constitution and the integrity of the institutions designed to promote accountability and good governance. Ratings agencies have been clear that the strength of our institutions separates South Africa from other markets, whose economic fundamentals are stronger but whose governance frameworks are weaker. This is not interfering in our political autonomy; it is ratings agencies simply communicating that our governance improves our financial management and therefore our credit worthiness.
The President has also failed to provide policy clarity, certainty and effective administration. These failures will ramp up the costs and risks of investing in South Africa. They will worsen South Africa’s abysmal economic performance of the past seven years. They will render any notion of radical economic transformation still born. They will continue to impoverish the most vulnerable in our society.
The membership of BLSA urgently calls on the President to demonstrate that he acts in the national interest. His powers are not without responsibility. He has a duty to take the nation into his confidence about critical changes to his Cabinet, and in particular changes to a well-functioning Ministry. He has a duty to place the interests of South Africa and all its citizens above those of any other.
If the President has credible and actionable reasons for the crisis unleashed by his action, he needs to tell the nation why he cancelled the investor roadshow and put to bed the rumours threatening our democracy.
Issued by Miyelani Shikwambana on behalf of Business Leadership SA, 30 March 2017
