Dear readers,
Towards the end of the press conference on the budget that never was, finance minister Enoch Godongwana mentioned the VAT leak to the Sunday Times three times in less than 10 seconds.
“Everybody was in that [cabinet] meeting, that’s why one of them leaked it to the Sunday Times. Right. One of them leaked it to the Sunday Times. It’s a cabinet minister. Leaked it to Sunday Times.”
The point he was making is that he and his National Treasury colleagues did, contrary to popular belief, present their VAT increase proposals to cabinet. He was not going to call a rally, he said, before increasing taxes. Look where that got him.
The rejection of that budget and the embarrassment caused to the country has had the effect of making the tax increase proposals subject to something bigger than a rally. It’s now not only public, it’s subject to national discourse on all media platforms pending approval on March 12. In short, the very thing he was trying to avoid has happened, without his concurrence. President Cyril Ramaphosa would have posted a mirthless smile while mockingly saying “whether he likes it or not”.
Our need to know of changes in tax policy is never out of pointless sensationalism. When last VAT was raised by 1 percentage point to 15%, did it achieve its intended goals? Many say no. So when the tax hike is now increased by two percentage points to 17%, have the theoretical underpinnings for the increase been re-examined? It doesn’t appear so. We are just out of runway.
Others have written in these pages on the meaning of a postponed budget and its implications for our internal politics. And the little gains made by the faux-populist DA that managed, in a strange kind of twist, to present itself as a champion of the poor while the ANC came across as a heartless beast without a care about how these tax increases would impact all of us, including the very poor who constitute its voters.
My concern today is a narrow yet crucial one. It is absurd that Godongwana and the team believe that a tax policy change such as the one they were about to table in parliament did not require heightened levels of transparency and discourse. Everything seems shrouded in secrecy. As editor, I am naturally happy that the Sunday Times receives leaks about these life-changing developments.
In an open society, where senior officials believe in transparency, this ought to have been a public discussion spearheaded by Godongwana and his team, inviting people to make inputs and suggestions on how to deal with the budget shortfall. In that way, the fact that there is an almost R300bn shortfall is not a scoop to be secretly shared with reporters (even though we love scoops this side of town), but public information. We, the people, should not be perceived as unthinking masses who must be talked down to.
When people contribute ideas to solving complex issues, they feel involved. A problem shared is a problem half-resolved, they say. Sharing these challenges also obviates the idea of a few wise men sitting in ivory towers, pretending to know it all.
Look how it has now backfired.
We must upend the idea of sharing budget information only when it is approved. The folly of this is a budget that fails to change lives, to alter the state of Alexandra or the Joburg inner-city, for example. If there is one thing we must fight about, and debate, it is the budget. Transparency ought to be our lodestar. But secrecy is a spoiler.
It allows those with ill-intent to act as though they’re for an open society when, in fact, they want to open the flood gates for misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook and Instagram, dropped fact-checkers in what is seen as pandering to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, whose X platform relies on “community notes” that remain hugely ineffective.
During Joe Biden’s last hours in office as US president, he warned against the “tech industrial complex” headed by Musk, Zuckerberg and other billionaires bent on spreading fake news at alarming rates, undermining things that we hold dear, such as accountability, transparency and justice. South Africa did not have to wait too long to understand what he was talking about.
In Europe, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country elects new leaders today, had choice words for US Vice President JD Vance for trying to provide a fillip to the German far right party, to which Musk also offered words of encouragement in a virtual address four weeks ago. Scholz said this week: “We will not accept it when outsiders intervene in our democracy, in our elections and in the democratic formation of opinion... That is just not done. Certainly not among friends and allies.” Quite pissed off at how Americans are trying to distort information ahead of German elections.
Today, the very idea of “truth” is fiercely contested. Whose truth? Germany is Europe’s biggest economy, which today is a bit shaky in the face of the self-serving, social media diplomacy of Trump and his billionaire buddies, who exhibit no care about what we value — truth, accountability and transparency.
On Monday, the Competition Commission will release the initial findings of its inquiry into how Google and other tech companies have exploited content created by media houses such as ours for their own benefit. It is obvious to us that they should pay. Great journalism is costly, yet crucial for democracy. It engenders the type of transparency that Godongwana and others are yet to embrace. If it’s not supported, society is left to the vagaries of influencers on Musk’s and other platforms where there is now zero fact-checking and where crucial institutions such as the Press Council and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa have no authority.
This is how the “tech industrial complex” to which Biden referred prefers it. In this world, the “truth” becomes a rumour and rumours repeated often enough become the truth. That’s a race to the bottom.
Verifiable information and the truth have become crucial currency in today’s economy. This is why businesses that profess to love our country must invest in the country’s credible media. Not doing so leaves business and the country at large at the mercy of those who don’t care about fact-checking, credibility and the very idea of truth.
To navigate this maelstrom, the Competition Commission must make the “techies” pay for our news content and this must be followed, crucially, by business and government supporting the South African media through advertising so it becomes a bulwark against sponsored fake news. It’s not about the media’s need for sustainability, it’s about the media’s invaluable contribution to our democracy and our defence of the truth.
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Dear readers,
Towards the end of the press conference on the budget that never was, finance minister Enoch Godongwana mentioned the VAT leak to the Sunday Times three times in less than 10 seconds.
“Everybody was in that [cabinet] meeting, that’s why one of them leaked it to the Sunday Times. Right. One of them leaked it to the Sunday Times. It’s a cabinet minister. Leaked it to Sunday Times.”
The point he was making is that he and his National Treasury colleagues did, contrary to popular belief, present their VAT increase proposals to cabinet. He was not going to call a rally, he said, before increasing taxes. Look where that got him.
The rejection of that budget and the embarrassment caused to the country has had the effect of making the tax increase proposals subject to something bigger than a rally. It’s now not only public, it’s subject to national discourse on all media platforms pending approval on March 12. In short, the very thing he was trying to avoid has happened, without his concurrence. President Cyril Ramaphosa would have posted a mirthless smile while mockingly saying “whether he likes it or not”.
Our need to know of changes in tax policy is never out of pointless sensationalism. When last VAT was raised by 1 percentage point to 15%, did it achieve its intended goals? Many say no. So when the tax hike is now increased by two percentage points to 17%, have the theoretical underpinnings for the increase been re-examined? It doesn’t appear so. We are just out of runway.
Others have written in these pages on the meaning of a postponed budget and its implications for our internal politics. And the little gains made by the faux-populist DA that managed, in a strange kind of twist, to present itself as a champion of the poor while the ANC came across as a heartless beast without a care about how these tax increases would impact all of us, including the very poor who constitute its voters.
My concern today is a narrow yet crucial one. It is absurd that Godongwana and the team believe that a tax policy change such as the one they were about to table in parliament did not require heightened levels of transparency and discourse. Everything seems shrouded in secrecy. As editor, I am naturally happy that the Sunday Times receives leaks about these life-changing developments.
In an open society, where senior officials believe in transparency, this ought to have been a public discussion spearheaded by Godongwana and his team, inviting people to make inputs and suggestions on how to deal with the budget shortfall. In that way, the fact that there is an almost R300bn shortfall is not a scoop to be secretly shared with reporters (even though we love scoops this side of town), but public information. We, the people, should not be perceived as unthinking masses who must be talked down to.
When people contribute ideas to solving complex issues, they feel involved. A problem shared is a problem half-resolved, they say. Sharing these challenges also obviates the idea of a few wise men sitting in ivory towers, pretending to know it all.
Look how it has now backfired.
We must upend the idea of sharing budget information only when it is approved. The folly of this is a budget that fails to change lives, to alter the state of Alexandra or the Joburg inner-city, for example. If there is one thing we must fight about, and debate, it is the budget. Transparency ought to be our lodestar. But secrecy is a spoiler.
It allows those with ill-intent to act as though they’re for an open society when, in fact, they want to open the flood gates for misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook and Instagram, dropped fact-checkers in what is seen as pandering to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, whose X platform relies on “community notes” that remain hugely ineffective.
During Joe Biden’s last hours in office as US president, he warned against the “tech industrial complex” headed by Musk, Zuckerberg and other billionaires bent on spreading fake news at alarming rates, undermining things that we hold dear, such as accountability, transparency and justice. South Africa did not have to wait too long to understand what he was talking about.
In Europe, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country elects new leaders today, had choice words for US Vice President JD Vance for trying to provide a fillip to the German far right party, to which Musk also offered words of encouragement in a virtual address four weeks ago. Scholz said this week: “We will not accept it when outsiders intervene in our democracy, in our elections and in the democratic formation of opinion... That is just not done. Certainly not among friends and allies.” Quite pissed off at how Americans are trying to distort information ahead of German elections.
Today, the very idea of “truth” is fiercely contested. Whose truth? Germany is Europe’s biggest economy, which today is a bit shaky in the face of the self-serving, social media diplomacy of Trump and his billionaire buddies, who exhibit no care about what we value — truth, accountability and transparency.
On Monday, the Competition Commission will release the initial findings of its inquiry into how Google and other tech companies have exploited content created by media houses such as ours for their own benefit. It is obvious to us that they should pay. Great journalism is costly, yet crucial for democracy. It engenders the type of transparency that Godongwana and others are yet to embrace. If it’s not supported, society is left to the vagaries of influencers on Musk’s and other platforms where there is now zero fact-checking and where crucial institutions such as the Press Council and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa have no authority.
This is how the “tech industrial complex” to which Biden referred prefers it. In this world, the “truth” becomes a rumour and rumours repeated often enough become the truth. That’s a race to the bottom.
Verifiable information and the truth have become crucial currency in today’s economy. This is why businesses that profess to love our country must invest in the country’s credible media. Not doing so leaves business and the country at large at the mercy of those who don’t care about fact-checking, credibility and the very idea of truth.
To navigate this maelstrom, the Competition Commission must make the “techies” pay for our news content and this must be followed, crucially, by business and government supporting the South African media through advertising so it becomes a bulwark against sponsored fake news. It’s not about the media’s need for sustainability, it’s about the media’s invaluable contribution to our democracy and our defence of the truth.
READ MORE FROM THE LATEST EDITION OF THE SUNDAY TIMES:
How Godongwana’s obstinacy cancelled the budget
Inside the ‘toxic’ relationship between Godongwana and Kieswetter
Transparency could have saved Godongwana his blushes
These state programmes will be affected if Godongwana doesn’t raise VAT
'Tech giants threaten real journalism'
Mampara of the week: Enoch Godongwana
Suck it up! Plastic straws will soon be history
Gayton McKenzie sees light at end of boxing's tunnel of horror and despair
Here's to Hunting a 1,000 more for Gavin
Former Transnet Property boss in trouble again
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Sundowns squeeze sweet revenge from Galaxy
Princess Sihle tipped to be 'mother of the nation'
Club culture — bling, booze and boredom
Second bite at budget is a chance to get it right
Hot mic gaffes long the bane of dozy politicians
The budget is not a political bargaining chip
Enoch Godongwana overplayed his hand - and nobody blinked
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