Reckless, clueless and damn scary talk by ANC loudmouths

10 April 2017 - 08:17 By Times Editorial
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The ANC and its bullyboy leader have no real appreciation of the mess they have got us all into. The bravado and reckless talk of President Jacob Zuma's acolytes following the credit ratings downgrades was most unedifying - and damn scary.

Zuma firing Pravin Gordhan as finance minister was bad enough - leading directly to downgrades to junk status by people whose job it is to assess risk. In other words, real economists, not political loudmouths.

Zuma's sprog Edward said he'd celebrate our "junking" as the investment-grade rating we'd enjoyed for many years had been "hell on earth". This was the same investment rating that had helped South Africa raise loans to pay salaries to its growing battalions of public servants.

Similar garbage was spouted by other creatures clinging to the Zuma rattletrap bandwagon.

Then, yesterday, up pops Enoch Godongwana, chairman of the ANC's subcommittee on economic transformation, no less, to say: "We don't have the full understanding of what the implications of the downgrading to junk status are at this stage."

So, Zuma went ahead with his fatal reshuffle without a clue as to what might happen.

However, Godongwana, less of an economic dunce than many in the governing party, has enough of a grasp of the downgrade situation to know that it makes the proposed nuclear deal an absurdity. And he just came out and said exactly that.

One wonders how long it'll be before he says he was mistaken and the nuke deal is actually hunky-dory and ready to fire up.

This comes on top of new Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba reciting in one breath the "radical economic transformation" mantra and with the next assuring us that while political leadership has changed economic policies remain the same.

The phrase blind leading the blind comes to mind.

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