Logan Roy was the magnificent and monstrous patriarch at the centre of the satirical television masterpiece Succession.
In the second episode of its final season in 2023, Roy delivered a killer line to his dysfunctional children, “I love you, but you are not serious people”.
Absent any amity, indeed amid high levels of acrimony, “you are not serious people” is a perfect fit for the ANC’s dysfunctional management style. This in reference to its relations with its partners in the creaking government of national unity (GNU), the looming, but
delayed, Budget and indeed the entire economic future of the country.
Their chaotic, bad faith and self (or party) serving style of doing things will, if unchecked, also kill off any prospects for economic growth and dent the mountain of unemployment, which disfigures our national landscape. It threatens to tip over into an avalanche of future
discord and destruction.
It was not serious for Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to present two (thus far) versions of the 2025/26 Budget without any agreement, let alone engaged negotiations, with his partners in the GNU.
Double-cross
It was not serious – at least in terms of honouring the commitments signed into an agreement embedded in the 14 June 2024 statement of intent, to bypass the signatories to that agreement, i.e. members of the current government. And then go shopping around
Parliament for support from parties outside the agreement. This being the precise route followed by the ANC since its first, failed attempt to introduce the Budget on 19 February.
Never mind treating the country of South Africa like an unruly ANC branch, this manoeuvre of going outside government and its partners to shore up support from parties in opposition to the GNU was a spectacular and egregious double-cross: in and of itself it renders the GNU’s viability in the gravest doubt. The ANC was even less serious, in terms of Cabinet management, though very serious for the economy, to reintroduce a slightly amended Budget on 12 March, again absent buy-in from key coalition partners.
Regarding seriousness, it is a tad naïve of the DA to insist on a signed agreement with the ANC on its proposals for a reconfigured Budget and other rather modest steps outlined in the DA proposals.
These proposals include sharing in the economic direction and policy of the government, spending reviews, devolution of ports and rail, co-chairing of Operation Vulindlela, and tweaks on VAT and the Expropriation Act. These are hardly ideological demands. The DA did not call for an end to BEE or a reconfigured foreign policy or other items which are anathema to ANC, which would, though, provide a genuine growth spurt for the country.
The naïve aspect is that even if an agreement is reached at the eleventh hour, recent form suggests the ANC never considers itself bound by its own written and signed commitments.
Had it honoured the provisions of the June 2024 statement of intent, which it signed, it would have avoided entirely the fiasco of the last-minute wrangling which has played out in recent weeks. For example, clause 13 of that agreement bound parties following the formation of the GNU, to convene a “lekgotla [strategy session] [to] develop an agreed policy agenda, which shall include policy priorities for the GNU”.
Once again, the solemn wording of the statement of intent, duly signed over nine months ago, committed the parties, including the ANC, to a defined economic agenda which doubtless such a lekgotla would have fleshed out.
This includes clause 11, which focuses on the priority of “rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, the promotion of fixed capital investment and industrialisation”. All this premised on “macro-economic management [that] supports development goals in a
sustainable manner”.
By word and deed of the tax and spend draft Budget, this clause, together with the preceding requirement of a strategy session to agree economic policy, was observed by the president and his party entirely in their breach.
Quite why another written agreement with the ANC will be, going forward, honoured by the same party remains open to doubt to understate matters.
Still, if you do a vox populi, it is likely most people will favour the DA’s continuance in the GNU especially if its departure heralds the entrance (directly or indirectly) of the EFF into governing arrangements.
We do not at this stage of writing, know the outcome of this wrangle and who will be left standing inside or outside government when the Budget finally passes. There are hard deadlines for the passage, in stages, of the 2025/26 Budget.
Trump’s tariffs
There is another big deadline on Wednesday, 2 April 2025, far away in Washington DC. It is so called (by Donald Trump) “liberation day”. He will announce a raft of protectionist tariffs against all countries or new duties (“reciprocal tariffs”) to match the duties that other
countries charge on US products. It is expected a likely 25% surcharge on SA automotive exports to the US will override any protection offered by AGOA. And that is just for starters. Even if this crashes our local industry.
Meantime, SA doubles down on its anti-Western foreign policy, though it is described by no less an ethical authority than Nomvula Mokonyane as “standing up for justice, humanity, equality and respect for the rule of law”.
Tom Eaton writing in Business Day waspishly riposted, “no, really, our lady of Bosasa Braai Packs actually said, ‘respect for the rule of law'”. He forgot to add she also promised to “pick up the Rand” from the depths Jacob Zuma plummeted it (now a whole lot worse and, if GNU collapses, more so).
She is not a serious person, though she occupies the “reformed and renewed” ANC, a very serious leadership position in it. When SA is hit by Trump tariffs, it will not be because we are being singled out for attention. Tariffs will be levied on all countries running trade surpluses with the US.
However, there are another set of punishments which Trump, in the best tradition of wrathful Roy, could line up against SA as he targets us for exemplary attention. We got a foretaste of this with his 7 February executive order addressing “egregious actions” of the SA government.
Right or wrong, things could soon get a whole lot worse. Some useful thoughts on how matters could spiral was spelt out last week by historian and writer Jonny Steinberg.
He wrote:
“Could Trump … threaten to destroy [SA] with a couple of executive orders and then invite its president to talk? The answer is yes. Trump could impose trade sanctions on SA; he could prohibit US institutions from buying SA’s sovereign debt. He does not need legislation to do this. He could do unthinkable damage to SA by signing his name”.
Steinberg is a serious writer not given to alarmist flights of fantasy. Though with Trump’s 15-minute attention span, predicting with certainty the course of events is akin to suggesting the ANC is committed to economic prosperity for all.”
However, an unserious response to these grave times was offered by the ANC itself which harrumphed on the weekend that “our leaders are not accountable to Washington”. In fact, when you run a R6-trillion national debt you are in fact in hock to Washington and to a clutch of other high-end countries which buy your bonds to finance your profligacy.
Saving the current GNU (which means maintaining the partnership with the DA) might, beyond salvaging the Budget and maintaining stability, have the add-on effect of saving SA from further punishing measures by a vengeful Trump. That is not certain, but it offers
at least a measure of hope.
The entrance into the GNU of the “Kill the Boer” red berets (either as a formal member or outside the GNU but with a veto on Budgets and legislation) will extinguish this.
And don’t be beguiled by the last gasp legally incompetent, arguably meaningless ‘agreement’ between ANC and Action SA to junk both direct VAT increases and indirect tax hikes by restoring inflation adjustments to personal tax brackets. This, unaccompanied by any spending cuts, leaves Treasury with a fiscal hole of at least R30 billion, which can only be funded by the bond market (see above). It gets the paltry (and temporary) six votes of Action SA for the Budget. But at what cost? Goodbye to the last vestiges of Treasury’s public finance credibility and hello to debt trap territory.
DA strategist Ryan Coetzee got to the essence of matters in recent posts on X:
The ANC will do anything to avoid sharing power even if that means destroying the economy… The ANC doesn’t care if SA becomes a
wasteland, as long as it’s an ANC wasteland.
The next days, maybe hours, will determine whether this serious warning comes to pass.
