Gordhan should focus on cutting cadre deployment and stemming corruption
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is seeking tips from ordinary folk in the run-up to the medium-term budget policy statement. It is undeniable that the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality are the most pressing of the problems that need to be tackled on October 26 when he rises in the National Assembly to present his plans, which as a matter of policy, should align with the National Development Plan. The funding of higher education is but one facet of dealing with poverty. SA is a country of at least 54-million people, yet only about 6-million are taxpayers, 9-million are unemployed and 18-million are recipients of state grants. All of these categories are growing rapidly — except the number of taxpayers. This is ominous and probably unsustainable on the current economic trajectory. SA has, since 1994, been a multiparty constitutional democracy under the rule of law. The Constitution is supreme and includes a justiciable Bill of Rights that obliges the state to r...
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