Burying the 'beef'? Tito Mboweni dines with Floyd Shivambu

What beef? Finance minister Tito Mboweni and EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu seem to have moved past their Twitter twars and public squabbles.

Mboweni this week shared a picture of himself and SA Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Lesetja Kganyago having a “small dinner” at an unknown restaurant.

In his post, Mboweni said while having the dinner, Shivambu decided to "invade" the gathering.  

If the pictures are anything to go by, it seems Mboweni and Shivambu had a good time, with the finance minister even referring to Shivambu as a “good young man.” 

“After a long but therapeutic drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, a smallanyana dinner with Governor Kganyago. Then Floyd Shivambu just invades us! Eish! These young people! Nice convo though. Good young man,” Mboweni wrote.

The dinner comes after the two have publicly taken jabs at each other for several months.

Earlier this year, Mboweni and his team from the National Treasury appeared before members of four parliamentary committees of finance and appropriations when he compared debating with Shivambu to being “savaged by a dead sheep”.

“I feel like that with honourable Shivambu. No substance but sloganeering. It’s as if I am going to lecture a heart surgeon on how to operate. I can’t lecture a heart surgeon on what to do,” Mboweni said

Shivambu hit back, suggesting Mboweni was acting foolishly.

“There is a crisis under your leadership now. It is a fact and we must criticise you. Don’t become foolish,” he said.

In March, Shivambu slammed Mboweni after the minister accused the EFF of “stealing” the ANC's ideas to implement a sovereign wealth fund.

“Please accept to be led minister Mboweni, and save yourself from mavunwa (lies)," Shivambu told Mboweni.

The two got into another heated war of words with Shivambu calling Mboweni “directionless”.

This after Mboweni said the economy was strong enough to recover after it was reported that SA had slipped into its third recession.

“What’s the scientific basis of a ‘strong enough’ economy while itis shrinking, shedding jobs, shrinking the revenue base without major shifts in the global economy? This is neoliberal sloganeering and the reality is that you’re directionless and you don’t know what will happen, said Shivambu 

Mboweni fired back, saying “One needs to understand and internalise: history, race, class and das Kapital. Colonialism of a societal type in SA and how to transform it and create a new economy. Dialectical and historical materialism. That’s the challenge we must deal with. No simple slogans.”

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