South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel tore into opposition parties on Friday — particularly the official opposition Democratic Alliance — for promoting populist economics that would not be sustainable in the country.
Speaking in reply to a nearly four-hour debate on the Appropriation Bill in the National Assembly, Manuel argued that two million jobs have been created in South Africa in the past 10 years and that is where the debate should begin.
“What the Budget Review does is to recognise that we need to carry out much more work [on unemployment assessment].”
But it is important to deal with the issue of unemployment without deluding the unemployed.
“It is important that the Budget is one that builds on the past and one that only [one acknowledges] has a measured contribution to the future. It is not a Budget intended in a cruel way in respect of the poor to try and say things to them that can’t be done simply because we want to catch their vote.”
It is important that South Africa deals properly with the unemployment issue.
“What political parties are doing that is so wrong is to lie to the unemployed. You lie to the unemployed because you don’t understand the dehumanising impact of unemployment on the individual, on families and communities.”
Arguing that the poor in the country are extremely patient, he said: “I say without fear of contradiction that there is no political party in this house that has any panacea for unemployment in this country. Let us recognise what the constraints are. We would all like full employment. Full employment is not realisable in any country at this stage.
“We should not fail to recognise the history of this country, what poverty does to people and why workers’ rights matter in South Africa. This notion of untold flexibility of the ability of employers to treat workers as floor rags will not resonate with working people in this country.”
He rejected the suggestion from the Minority Front that child care grants should go up nearly five-fold to R500 a month. This would push this bill from R6,6-billion to about R24,6-billion.
“This is unaffordable,” he said.
“If we say such things to people we will destroy our credibility. The privilege we have in a democratic South Africa is that the poor are unbelievably tolerant. But we will destroy that by populism.”
Referring directly to the official opposition Democratic Alliance, Manuel said its proposed budget for the country is populist and “will push up costs by R28-billion in addition to what we are spending”.
“It would add a further 2,1% to the deficit pushing our deficit to R70-billion or 5,2% of GDP [gross domestic product] and the debt service costs would be R15-billion … an addition that won’t be available for spending and that would impact on the poor. Your macro-economic populism is unsustainable.”
In a division on the Appropriation Bill, the Bill got the nod of 223 votes and the opposition raised 32 votes. — I-Net Bridge