President must stare down the Enemies of Growth

25 June 2019

Madame Speaker,

This being our first debate since the election, I begin by congratulating the President on his election as President of the Republic.

I am sure the President dreamed (fond as he is of dreaming) of beginning his first full term in office in more favourable times.

But the last decade under this government has meant that we meet today at a time of national anxiety.

No amount of Presidential dreaming can mask the harsh economic facts we now face.

The haze of Ramaphoria has given way to sober reality.

Years of excess and sin - spending, debt and corruption - have caught up with us.

The cupboard is bare.

Our national debt has never been higher.

And millions of people in our country are desperately worried about how to get work, or whether they will still have a job at the end of the month.

They worry what will happen to their life savings, how they will pay the bills, and what the future holds for their children.

To the President it is a “lost decade”, but to the country it is an entire “lost generation” of unemployed young people.

The moment requires bold and decisive leadership.

It is one thing to lift the national gaze with a vision of the distant future.

And it was absolutely right to focus the attention of the country on the urgent need for faster economic growth.

But unless it is matched by a real commitment to make the difficult choices to achieve growth, then it’s all just empty words.

It is easy to speak of growth and jobs. President Zuma did that in his SONA in 2009.

If you say we are going to obsess about growth, then you must also commit specifically (by name) to stopping all of the growth killing policies your government is responsible for.

If you say you are committed to responsible economics, then you need to commit explicitly to debt reduction.

If you say you’ve got a plan for Eskom, then you better tell the country exactly what it is.

If you say yours will be a government of doers, then you better stop promoting all of the takers.

Dreaming has its place, but it is no substitute for action. And there was precious little of that in your Address.

This is the central question from your speech is this - Why could you not make one single concrete announcement? Not one.

The answer is this: There is no agreement in your party about a focus on growth.

There is no agreement on responsible economics.

There’s no agreement on Eskom, or reducing debt, or the public wage bill.

There is no consensus in the governing party on any one of the major questions facing our economy.

Far from it.

The truth is this President is in office, but he is not in power.

It is easy to call on the courage of citizens to endure these hardships, but where is your courage in matching dreams with tough action?

Don’t talk about courage, display it.

You cannot go on forever finding messy compromise in every problem, leaving everyone guessing as to what you really think, telling everyone what they want to hear.

The Enemies of Growth

You must stare down the Enemies of Growth.

You don’t turn a crocodile vegetarian by feeding it more meat.

Every time you compromise with the looting, lunatic left, you just embolden them more.

And one day, when you have compromised everything away, they will come for you.

They are not your friends. They are a hazard to the country.

And it’s time to call them out. It is time to show that you are prepared to make the tough decisions to achieve growth.

If you are really committed to growth, do these 5 things in your reply tomorrow, Mr President:

- Consolidate your 7 priorities and 5 goals into only one: Economic growth, above all

- Open the way for the Metros to purchase electricity from any lowest cost producer

- Scrap the Carbon Tax, which is actually a Manufacturing Tax

- Make clear that there will be no more money for SAA

- Make clear your position on the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank and the prescription of assets

If you do these things, you will show you meant what you said.

If not, we can only conclude you are in thrall to your political pay-masters.

The DA’s stall

While no one knows where the President stands, it is clear where the Democratic Alliance stands.

The Enemies of Growth have lost the economic argument completely, but they continue to dominate the debate.

Everything they propose has failed everywhere it has been tried.

It is time we took control of the economic argument.

We are the only party with the ideas and sound economic principles that will deliver a future of broad prosperity for all.

We are determined that the cruelty of poverty can be eradicated from our society. This is our highest ambition and sole obsession.

The only way to eradicate poverty and build prosperity is to grow the economy faster, through policies which unleash enterprise and individual aspiration.

We have an unwavering commitment to fiscal responsibility as the foundation of economic stability.

We know that millions of South Africans depend on public services, and that precisely because so many depend on them, those services need to be well funded.

We recognise that, without growth, government has no money to spend on the poor.

You do not sustain a country on debt, only on investment and savings.

To grow, we must have policies that support the risk takers, policies that recognise that entrepreneurs create jobs, not government.

Policies that support private ownership, uphold the rule of law, reject narrow protectionism, and embrace the global market.

That is where we stand.

This is what sets us apart as the party of jobs, of growth, and of broad prosperity.

And we are smarting for a fight.

I want to tell the ANC and the EFF that we in this party find it obscene that millions of young people can’t find work because of your bad ideas.

You are clutching to the sinking wreckage of a statist ideology, threatening to take the whole country down with you.

Not on our watch. We love South Africa too much to let you drag us down.

We will fight your failed ideas that have got us into the mess we face today.

We will defend the independence of the Reserve Bank, and we will protect the retirement savings of ordinary hard-working people.

This will be the defining fight of this Parliament.

We are ready to make our case with growing confidence and vigour.

It is time for the rational centre to dominate the economic debate, and to beat back the Enemies of Growth.

Issued by Geordin Hill-Lewis, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, 25 June 2019