Over the last years of Jacob Zuma's administration, we have watched the mismanagement of the country's assets by his inner circle and their deployment to our most important state-owned companies. From SABC to Eskom, governance collapsed and comics like Hlaudi Motsoeneng made a mockery of important institutions. "State capture" will best describe the reign of Zuma.
The sovereignty of any nation lies in its ability to control its budgeting process. Once policymakers can no longer carve out the cake to meet the needs of its people, it's officially compromised.
The tampering with VAT for the first time in 25 years is evidence, if any more was needed, that South Africa now caters to the demands of bondholders, ratings agencies and a broad investment community, including some Russian oligarchs.Despite an unemployment rate above 26%, and youth unemployment of more than 50%, the National Treasury had no choice but to raise revenues from the very same people. There was no other place to go without raising the country's debt-to-GDP ratio - already at over 50% - to levels that would take decades to recover.
One could argue that the country is nowhere near the situation that caused the eurozone crisis some eight years ago; Greece's ratio is still over 180%. But South Africa is lumped into an emerging-market basket. And in this basket, a debt-to-GDP ratio above 40% threatens fiscal sustainability.
For developed markets, economic theory says the 60% threshold is often noted as the prudential limit. And while Greece has long passed that figure, it has the creature comforts of Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy, as its big brother.
In our mess, South Africa is on its own. What is more depressing is that for the most part, we have brought ourselves here. A place where we have to pick on the poorest to help stabilise the fiscus. We've watched as parastatal CEO after CEO, and their boards, led by chairs such as Dudu Myeni and Ben Ngubane, have run riot.Criticisms of their actions are either brushed off as a "white monopoly capital" agenda or an unfair focus on the actions of public servants over those of private sector participants.
But here's the difference. Markets have their say on the failures of both. With the private sector we've seen an example in the collapse of Steinhoff International, where billions of a company's valuation was wiped off in a matter of weeks.
When it comes to public malfeasance, the costs are far steeper and hit across the spectrum. There's no colour bar here.
When markets have a say in the affairs of a country's financial affairs, what is threatened in the case of South Africa is everything from social welfare to textbooks in Limpopo.
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, or whoever replaces him, will for some time be at the mercy of the world's financial capitals of New York and London.
But there's some hope in the health of the South African economy. Just by bringing back confidence into the economy, which President Cyril Ramaphosa has so far managed, our prospects look a whole lot better.Accelerated growth can ease the load on the fiscus and ensure that the increase in VAT is the bottom of the barrel. If the improved sentiment is sustained for the short to medium term, in a few years we can talk of a growth budget.
Should this be our path, the country should never forget who stole our sovereignty for their own stomachs and passed it onto bondholders, more concerned about their own financial targets than our socio-political ills.
Never again, never again...