Whoops, we did it again - sorry Britney Spears - we tanked the rand, left markets reeling and put international investors off plugging much-needed cash into our economy.
Well done us, just what we need.
Us, you ask? It wasn’t us - it was the powers-that-be that left us in this sorry mess. If anything, the collective us has come out against the Hawks seemingly wanting to charge our esteemed minister of finance, Pravin Gordhan, you say.
Indeed, business, civil society and economists have been rather vocal about this whole mess.
On Thursday, a slew of well-respected economists put out a statement arguing that President Jacob Zuma, the Cabinet and the National Executive Committee needed “to assist in bringing this dangerous set of events to an end in the best way possible in the interests of our country and our economy”.
“It is time for real leaders in the NEC and the Cabinet and in the SACP and Cosatu to stand up to the tyrannical and despotic behaviour on display here because yet again we stand on the edge of an economic precipice,” they wrote in an open letter.
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These economists - who have every reason to worry - weren't the only voices calling for reason and lambasting the elite police unit - the Hawks - for what many call a witch hunt against Gordhan.
Freedom Under Law and the Helen Suzman Foundation, Business Leadership SA, the Federation of Unions of South Africa, the Banking Association of SA and several business leaders have all rallied around Gordhan.
Their thinking is based on a simple premise: as a country we just cannot afford more shocks to an economy that is stalled in the station. We can’t afford to deter investors. We don’t want to see wealth eroded on the JSE. It’s all about the money.
And, they have a good point.
Speak up, louder
Except this is a little like the slap on the wrist that France and the UK gave Germany when it decided to annex its neighbours before WW2. No, I’m not saying we stand on the edge of a war.
What I am saying is that we stand on the edge of a calamity of another sort. We now seriously risk being downgraded to junk in December despite collective efforts to fend that off. We will turn investors away. The rand will sink - pushing inflation higher.
And the people who will feel this the most are those who can least afford to.
Which is why I’m confused as to why the outrage has been limited to a protest outside the Hawks’ offices and several indignant letters.
Why have we not, like students, taken to the streets en masse? Why have we not staged marches in several city centres, printed beautiful placards and even followed in the unions’ footsteps and caused the economy to halt for a few days?
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Why? Because I think big business is apathetic. Or, maybe, it’s scared of annoying the wrong person and losing out when tenders are announced.
Or maybe it’s just keeping its head down and carrying on with business as usual. Only big business knows.
This, however, is simply not good enough. Sure, there are several factors impacting our economy that are out of our control. Like the economic rout. We can do very little about those.
What we can do, however, is really pull together to protect our economy and jobs as much as we can. And I haven’t seen that happening; not now, and not when Nenegate - as people call it - happened last December.
SA Inc, this is very disappointing.
* Nicola Mawson is the online editor of Business Report. Follow her on Twitter @NicolaMawson or Business Report @busrep.
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