Former finance minister Tito Mboweni. (Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A Thursday-evening virtual dialogue with finance minister Tito Mboweni was derailed when cries of “austerity kills” caused the hosts to end the Zoom call.
The discussion, organised by non-governmental organisation the Bishops Foundation, was meant to cover topics relating to youth unemployment and post-Covid economic recovery. The talk was held a week after riots, looting and killings in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng shocked South Africa.
But before Mboweni got more than a few words in, it was flooded by chants of “austerity kills” by feminist economists demanding, among other things, a universal basic income grant and an end to corporate looting.
The hosts promptly removed the agitators, known as SA Feminists. The minister, who posted about the talk on Twitter, also left the call. The Twitter post subsequently disappeared.
Last week’s unrest — ignited by Jacob Zuma supporters angered by the former president’s incarceration for contempt of court the week before — has led to renewed calls for a universal basic income grant. The grant has been a subject of discussion among policymakers for more than two decades.
On Sunday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa said during the annual Nelson Mandela memorial lecture that a basic income grant would show people that the government was “giving serious consideration to their lives”. The following day, the acting minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, confirmed that the cabinet was considering various options for the provision of a basic income grant.
Mboweni has said in the past that he does not rule out the prospect of such a grant.
At a media briefing in April last year, as the country wrestled with the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mboweni said: “I think about it all the time. I read a lot about it. I study. I analyse it all the time … It is a serious question, which must be considered and not dismissed offhand.”
The Zoom incident came a few hours after the South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee painted a bleak picture of the country’s economic prospects, revising its GDP growth forecasts in the wake of the destruction wrought by the unrest.
Because of the looting and destruction, which hurt the retail sector the most, the economic growth forecast for 2021 remains unchanged at 4.2%, Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago said in a statement he delivered after the meeting.
“Prior to the unrest, we were destined to revise our growth forecast for this year higher. In the aftermath of the unrest, we could not revise our growth any higher,” the central bank governor said.
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