EDITORIAL: Compliance trumps merit
Malusi Gigaba enters the Treasury with the expectation he will be a pawn in the president’s game
What are the likely consequences of Malusi Gigaba becoming finance minister? The short answer is that it is ill-advised to make preconceived judgments. Gigaba deserves time to outline his programme, set his agenda and define his own path. SA has a grand tradition of finance ministers who take the portfolio at times of crisis and perform much better than they are given credit for on entry. Yet, only the wilfully blind could argue that Gigaba is not facing an extraordinary challenge, that his record is unblemished or that his position is not compromised from the start. President Jacob Zuma’s history of Cabinet appointments, it is now plain to see, are broadly underpinned by three main considerations. First, he tends to seek out people who are little known and lightly qualified. The objective, conscious or otherwise, is to hire people who owe their positions not to their expertise or any independent political power base, but to him. They, and he, know they are there for only one reason...
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