EDITORIAL: Zuma’s fee plan: a ratings calamity
But if the economics are disturbing, so too are the murky politics of Zuma’s plan
Michael Sachs’ departure as head of treasury’s budget office is as much a tragedy as it is hugely disturbing. Sachs, an astute technocrat who also has impeccable ANC credentials, has headed that budget office for the past decade. During that time, he served three finance ministers (including Pravin Gordhan, twice) and led the crafting of a budget framework that allowed government to weather the global financial crisis, stay the course of fiscal consolidation and stave off being junked by the rating agencies — despite hard economic times and lunatic politics. Sachs is the sort of person you can’t easily replace. Nor is it easy to replicate the brand of credibility he brought to the budgeting process. But the chain of events that led to his resignation is even more disturbing. Hardly a week after finance minister Malusi Gigaba presented his medium-term budget, treasury officials found themselves spending the weekend digging into the (already announced) departmental budgets to find R40...
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