The Democratic Alliance (DA) and Congress of the People (Cope) on Monday called on Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to show he is firmly in control of macroeconomic policy when he tables his first budget on Tuesday.
The parties said it was up to the former revenue service commissioner to show that ”the centre will hold” and that the left would not be allowed to dictate economic policy.
”We stand at a crossroads where elements within the ruling party alliance, with a clear populist agenda, are increasingly micro-managing the government.
”If this trend continues to prevail, the potential impact of changes to the macroeconomic policy will be a blow to consistency and will send the wrong signals to participants in the economy,” they said in a statement.
At a joint press conference, DA and Cope MPs called on Gordhan to continue on the course former finance minister Trevor Manuel struck in his 14 years at the helm.
They said he should hold steady on taxes and keep up infrastructure and social spending, which in the absence of tax hikes would mean more borrowing given widely accepted deficit forecasts of just less than 8%.
The DA’s Dion George said greater borrowing would call for greater prudence and discipline in state spending.
”I hope he has the power to stay stop wasting money because every cent we have is borrowed money,” he said.
George called on Gordhan to take a clear ideological stance amid the infighting on economic policy and leadership plaguing government and ”look beyond communism”.
”We hope he says to the Congress of South African Trade Unions that nationalisation is not going to work,” he said. ”We would like him to stand up and say, ‘I’m in charge of macro-economic policy’.”
Cope’s Smuts Ngonyama urged Gordhan to show ”which side he is going to take”.
The parties also urged the minister not to allocate further bail-outs to stricken state-owned enterprises, but rather furnish them with good governance guidelines, including caps of executives salaries.
Meanwhile, the Independent Democrats (ID) finance spokesperson, Lance Greyling — ploughing his own row — said his party ”also wants to see a sharp rise in spending on social development during this period as there are far more people in need of urgent government assistance”.
Likewise he wanted more spending on infrastructure. ”In particular, school infrastructure spending needs to be prioritised, as well as maintenance of our failing sewerage and water treatment plants,” Greyling said.
He warned that the ID will also be watching the figures concerning the budget deficit and how the minister plans to rein it in over the next few years.
”There are competing economic theories around the duration and intensity of the global economic crisis and the ID hopes that the minister has planned for all eventualities,” he said.
He urged Gordhan to save money on various public enterprises — in particular Denel and the Pebble Bed Modular Nuclear Reactor. He also called for a halt to ”lavish expenditure by senior officials and ministers as well as ensuring that CEOs of public enterprises are no longer afforded huge salaries and bonuses”. — Sapa, I-Net Bridge