As with most things in life, if you want to know what's really going on, follow the money. In the case of South Africa's ANC government, much of the revenue the Treasury was expecting to haul in this fiscal year won't materialise. That leaves Pravin Gordhan, the new finance minister, staring into a deep hole wondering how best to fill it.
How come? The ongoing global recession is eroding the tax payments needed to finance the unrealistic election commitments the ANC made to voters. There's just not enough in the kitty to generate the 500,000 new jobs Zuma promised, build and refurbish a creaking infrastructure, support the growing army of unemployed, heal South Africa's dangerously depleted health services, bolster social welfare, reform a lagging education system, accelerate rural development, fight crime, eliminate corruption and so on. And so on.
As for the ANC's promise of a National Health Service, forget it.
All this and more was spelled out by Gordhan in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement for 2009-20013 presented to MPs on October 27 (see here). So Gordhan acknowledges there's an urgent need to make big cuts in government spending next year and beyond by focusing on priorities and slashing waste and corruption in a bid to contain anticipated fiscal deficits.
As a result Zuma's horde of ministers and hangers-on are going to get a lot less in 2010/11 with which to run their departments. That is only going to intensify the back-stabbing and turf battles among power-hungry politicians who'll now be scrambling for crumbs from Zuma's table.
Assuming Gordhan's case for mercilessly slashing spending has already been OK'd by Zuma (and by economic planning chief Manuel), who among Alliance "deployees" to Parliament will give it unequivocal support? Who will damn it with faint praise? And who will have the balls to reject his austere fiscal strategy outright? Ditto in the big Budget debate next February? Watch this space.