Editorial: Sacrificing economy to settle old scores

President Jacob Zuma skipped this year's meeting of the rich and powerful at the Swiss ski resort of Davos. He evidently felt he had bigger fish to fry back home, leaving it to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to fly South Africa's flag this week.

Perhaps it's best he stayed away, and that the more sensible arm of the government could make the case for an economy that has weathered tough times, not the least of which are the storm Zuma himself unleashed around the Finance Ministry and the state-capture controversy involving his bosom pals, the Gupta business family.

So, in Davos it was all National Development Plan and a warm welcome to all potential investors.

But, cold as it was in the Alpine resort, the South African delegation must have felt the chill more keenly as an icy wind blew in from home.

story_article_left1

While Ramaphosa & Co were talking a good story, Zuma waded in to an area in which he has shown himself to be singularly unqualified - the economy. Face facts: anyone who dumps the respected Nhlanhla Nene in favour of David "Des" van Rooyen, as Zuma tried and failed to do, cannot have much grasp of matters economic.

Undeterred, however, by the havoc his ill-judged decisions have caused, Zuma saw fit to have his say at an ANC economic policy meeting. As we report elsewhere, he dismissed his colleagues' efforts as being "not radical enough", calling for their report to be "reversed". Enough of the "apologetic approach", Zuma declared, sending party minions back to the drawing board.

Top of his list of his "objections" was the banks, a particular bugbear of Zuma's after South Africa's commercial banks pulled the rug from under the Guptas' feet. In targeting the banks, Zuma is picking up where another of his pet ministers, Mosebenzi Zwane of mineral resources, left off with his statement last year that the cabinet had agreed to investigate the banks - and in which he was no doubt egged on by his boss.

A beginner's knowledge of economics is enough to know that the banks, while not above criticism, are at the heart of the economy.

Zuma's demand for extra doses of radicalism reminds one of his call in 2012 for a "second transition", one that would focus the ANC's "economic emancipation" efforts. Little appears to have come of that, with empowerment languishing and the Guptas amassing great wealth.

story_article_right2

Perhaps the president was not talking economics at all, and was in fact sticking to the territory he knows best, political intrigue. For in making his demand for radicalism, Zuma is firing a shot across the bows of his deputy, Ramaphosa, as he did with his "South Africa is ready for a woman president" statement.

Zuma's economic prescriptions are a rejection of the more conservative economic policies with which Ramaphosa has identified his campaign to take over from Zuma as ANC president and, ultimately, president of South Africa.

In the hotbed of intrigue that is the ANC succession race, Zuma has laid down a marker that will make it more difficult for Ramaphosa to garner support. The battle over economic policy will, in reality, be a proxy political battle.

It will be a poor day for the people of South Africa if our economic welfare is trampled underfoot in a political stampede. The country requires solid economic policies, not the sort of ideas that have turned Zimbabwe into a basket case.

And that should be regardless of who wins at the ANC's elective conference later this year.