Tandisizwe Mahlutshana
CAPE TOWN - I am generally not an easy-to-get-angry type of a person, but I nearly threw a cup full of coffee at my laptop screen when I was watching the delivery of the 2021 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement by rookie Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
Before I get to my bugbear, let me digress a little, and this is not only to Godongwana but every government official.
Please leave joke-cracking to Chester Missing, Nik Rabinowitz, and the like, because when you make a speech in Parliament you are in fact not only delivering it to the few hundred Members of Parliament – at full complement, but importantly to the 55 million South Africans who by the way not only find your humour dry but also wish for a minister who doesn’t make jokes about their struggles.
Godongwana seemed to be having a blast during his speech, poking fun at the poor South Africans who are now worryingly dependent on the R350 Social Distress Grant for being anxious that the grant would be scrapped from 2022.
Sorry Minister Godongwana, that was not funny. That R350 is all these people have and may have ever had throughout their entire lives, thanks to your party’s so-called pro-poor Budget stance.
Yes, that’s my bugbear. The fact that you define a pro-poor Budget as a budget that aims to spend 60 percent of non-interest spending on social relief schemes of some kind or another should at best be challenged.
Spending on services such as education, health and transport isn’t pro-poor spending. That’s neutral government spending, sir.
Already, this brings to far less than 50 percent the tangible spending on the poor that could result in them living another day having had something to eat before going to bed.
But this begs a critical question: what are your government’s plans for the poor people of South Africa, many of whom are young and mentally sound.
Are your plans to create dependency on state resources and maintain the status quo of the poor in the country?
Because your pro-poor spending will never move the dial on the social status of the poor. In other words, with that strategy they will always remain poor. Is that what your department and the government want?
I think I know the answer to that question and the main reason for it… but since there’s a comedian in you, itching to come out when you’re discussing a huge bread and butter issue, here’s an opportunity to humour us, so please go ahead. Do you want the poor to remain poor or do you want to get them out of poverty?
If it is the latter Mr Minister, then please go back to the drawing board. Not just you, your entire government colleagues.
The poor South African youth that have a slightly-less grim life to live because they can afford to go to a Silulo Ulutho internet café to search for employment opportunities thanks to the R350 Social Relief Grant (yes, that one you were making fun of) those young people aren’t mentally poor at all.
In fact, some may be smart enough to be part of your expenditure planning committees because not only have they got the experience of living a poor life, the real-life of most South Africans, they are also well educated and academically qualified.
What will therefore be genuine pro-poor spending is a kind of spending that will be aimed at getting these people out of poverty. There is nothing to celebrate when one still remains in poverty after your continuous pro-poor Budget, one after another.
First, improve our education system to ensure that it produces more higher-learning candidates than it produces dropouts. By the way, chat to your colleagues to look at Finland’s education system.
Second, get the notion that the government has a duty to create jobs out of your head. The government’s job is not to create jobs but to create job opportunities. There’s a marked difference there, Mr Minister.
Third, can you please reduce the size of your Cabinet? And how much are you spending on each member of the Cabinet? Trust me, the poor people of South Africa will applaud you for that.
Therefore, the only way you can prove that you want to lift poor South Africans out of poverty is to plan for spending that is intended to make the poor less dependent on state resources over time, and become self-sustainable through employment or business prospects.
And when that happens, there would potentially be more available for National Treasury’s coffers through taxes, so that the state can continue to improve our education system to world-class standards as well as other state services.
However, if you continue with your pro-poor Budget narrative that you were all clapping to during your Mini-Budget Speech, then I am truly sorry for the poor South Africans who are looking forward to this government lifting them out of poverty.
∎ Mahlutshana is a specialist communications consultant within the financial services industry.
Cape Times