EDITORIAL: Jacob Zuma in charge of the budget?
Talk of strengthening the Presidency’s role in budgeting for the NDP and of budget reforms, inevitably raises red flags about the ANC’s intentions
The ANC discussion document Legislature & Governance, published at the weekend, takes what appears to be an alarmingly centrist view of economic policy, which may well be cover for cutting the power of the Treasury. The Presidency is the "strategic centre of governance", says the document, and it must be the central driver, among other things, of resource planning, prioritisation and allocation in line with the National Development Plan (NDP). The Treasury is not mentioned in the document. And putting the Presidency at the strategic centre seems innocuous enough — indeed, bringing some coherence and consistency to the government’s increasingly fragmented approach to policy could only be a good thing. But this narrative is not new. We know it has been a stick with which to beat the finance minister and his team, going back at least as far as the era of Nhlanhla Nene. The charge that the budget isn’t aligned enough with the NDP has in the recent past been one of the ways in which some...
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