EDITORIAL: Take the whip to other bodies
Jacob Zuma and his ministers should target what departments can do to boost the economy’s growth instead of hammering Treasury and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan
When President Jacob Zuma reportedly attacked the Treasury and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan last week for depriving government departments of the money they need to pursue their mandates, it was part of the new and poisonous politics of state capture — but also part of an old refrain. The Treasury has long been a whipping boy for departments or ministers who can’t get the funding they want for their favourite projects. It is too often easy to blame underperformance in achieving the departmental mandate on a lack of money rather than on a lack of political will, sheer incompetence or corruption. It is true, though, that times are hard in the government, compared with a few years ago. Austerity is the wrong word entirely to describe the situation, because government spending is still growing at above-inflation rates each year, rather than being cut. But, since 2012, there has been a spending ceiling in place that had to be reduced in the face of revenue shortfalls. In October’s med...
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