Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. Photo: Dwayne Senior/Getty Images
Abruptly, in the quiet of midnight, the VAT increase succumbed to its fate. It was an understated death for a beast that has stolen so much South African attention over the past two months.
The saga represents the worst of our country: an inability to cooperate, political sniping and the prioritising of expediency over governance. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and the treasury, however, will rightly face the sternest criticism.
Wednesday night’s ending has cast the minister as the antagonist. Read in black-and-white, the events portray him as an unyielding figure clinging to his desired objective. It was only through pressure from the courts and the public that he eventually loosened his grip. (Although to be fair, the question of where else he can find the money to plug the R75 billion budget shortfall is not easily answered.)
But, after all the rebukes have been issued and all the consequences suffered, we must ensure the debacle is never repeated.
History may well record this as a victory for democracy; noting that the wrangling was necessary to secure a result that benefits South Africans. But it will also judge us if we don’t extract the right lessons.
For so long, most of us have been ignorant of the mechanics of the budget. We have implicitly, perhaps ignorantly, trusted that the system is working to deliver us an unprejudiced fiscal framework every year. That is now over.
Many economic commentators have long warned against the unilateral power that the treasury yields in controlling our national wallet. Their concerns now look vindicated.
We are also living in a new, post-ANC majority world. Political trajectories are impossible to predict, but the closest thing to a certainty we have is that coalition governance — in some form or another — is here to stay.
That reality demands better, more mature collaboration.
The underlying sales pitch of the government of national unity (GNU) was that it was a boon for foreign investment. At first that appeared to be playing out, with our executive boasting successful trips to London and New York to woo capital investment.
But, if there is one universal economic truth, it is that instability is not a friend to business. And there would be no greater threat to stability than another budget bungle.
We accept that there will be further philosophical differences in government — such is the nature of the parties involved. On the matter of responsible national planning, however, there can be no compromise.
If the GNU is to succeed, then it must prove it is able to establish a framework that will inoculate us against another ugly two-month spat.