6 days ago
After the Bell: The Budget Battle is over. Long live the Budget Battle!
The government has to provide many more people with a lot more, with a lot less money. And that's never easy. This means that a process of budget reform is now starting … and it will not be easy.
I've often noticed that in my working life, after a big project, or tussle or fight, as soon as it's over, another one begins.
It's in the nature of the beast I suppose; capitalism won't allow you to stand still and you have to move from one thing to another. And often the companies and people that are able to do this in the quickest and best ways are the most successful.
I don't know if I can use the word 'successful' in connection with our coalition government…
But now that it's finally over — the fight around the Budget — a new fight is about to begin. And I think, and fear, it will be a lot more intense than the old fight we have just seen.
The government has to provide many more people with a lot more, with a lot less money. And that's never easy. This means that a process of budget reform is now starting … and it will not be easy.
I'm sure you've been in a position, at a meeting around a table, or just sitting in your work chair while your boss or the manager or the CEO's boss or some idiot from head office has given the most non-rousing speech you've ever heard, and then had the nerve to mention the R-word. (No, not Recession. Worse than that. Resilient.)
I hate that word. I didn't know one could hate a word, I mean seriously. But I do. I hate it with a passion.
It always means someone is demanding I do more with less. Basically, I'm being screwed over.
Now, in a company, there are all sorts of ways to save money — you can often cut back on some of the goodies. No serious person needs a cappuccino machine; everyone can get by on proper coffee.
And often there are ways to make more money.
Governments can't do that. They have to make do with what they have. And reforming them is much, much slower.
Our current Budget is all about trade-offs.
Now I'm not a big fan of people in uniform carrying weapons; the whole idea can scare me. I'm from a generation of South Africans where the phrase 'Law and Order' reminds me of Adriaan Vlok and the worst of the 1980s.
But even I can't deny that the SANDF needs more money. And it needs it now.
No one can seriously argue that health and education budgets can be cut.
But there is plenty that can and must be done.
So much of the wastage happens long after the departmental budget process.
I mean, can anyone seriously believe that stacking Gauteng hospital boards with leaders from the ANC Youth League is a good idea?
Some other cuts are obvious.
The Ministry of Small Business Development gives me the impression it has done nothing for anybody.
I don't know what the Ministry of Women, Youth and People Living with Disabilities does? (And I worry that creating a special ministry for some people can ghetto-ise them anyway.)
There are some other obvious examples around salaries.
If you look at our roads, would you seriously suggest the CEO of the Road Traffic Management Corporation should get more than R10-million a year?
And a big chunk of this is a performance bonus? How the…
Then there is the Road Accident Fund. Its currently suspended CEO Collins Letsoalo was getting about the same. And had the gall to spend a lot more money on bodyguards.
I also think that making cuts is politically hard. There will be so many bad actors that will just get in the way.
We are living in an environment where many people have made a strong case to allow Starlink to operate in our massive and largely rural country. And yet the EFF has decided it will die on the hill of opposing the changes to the law that would allow it to come here.
Much of this opposition will be performative and idiotic. Just yesterday, the MK party managed to vote against every department budget and then cast its ballots in favour of the actual Appropriations Bill.
Colleen Makhubele was an incredibly disruptive and incompetent Speaker in Johannesburg. It looks like she might have the same impact on MK as its Chief Whip.
Instead, I think what is going to have to happen is that a group of National Treasury bureaucrats will have to get together, work out what needs to be cut and just present that to the politicians.
And if they do it properly, basically putting the politicians in a position where they just have to accept it, then this fight might be a little easier.
