MANYANE MANYANE
Governance experts said the burden of government corruption, failure and incompetence had been passed on to the taxpayers, culminating in Wednesday’s attempts during the now postponed budget to increase value added tax (VAT) by 2%.
The budget speech has been postponed to March 12, following a disagreement between political parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU).
The experts said corruption, incompetence and bad politics are the reasons South Africa is in economic crisis and failing to create jobs.
They said President Cyril Ramaphosa must consider cutting the benefits of politicians from national, provincial and local governments.
Governance expert Professor William Gumede said the government’s development model has been to transfer the burden and the consequences of incompetence, corruption and bad politics to the taxpayers. Gumede said this is the model that the government developed to drive the country into high taxes, low growth and lawlessness.
He added for the county to show growth, the government needs to reduce incompetence and corruption, as well as cancel bad policies.
“We need to clean corruption and incompetence in the departments that are critical to economic growth,” said Gumede, adding that the government must appoint skilled people who are not linked to the ANC.
Gumede said instead of the government continuing to burden taxpayers, it must cut all the benefits that politicians are enjoying. He said this must include the national, provincial and local governments.
Before the postponement of the budget speech, Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader Mmusi Maimane proposed that Godongwana should streamline the size of the Cabinet, adding that a leaner and more efficient government structure would reduce unnecessary expenditure while improving coordination and effectiveness.
Maimane also proposed the elimination of VIP protection for politicians and shut down ineffective state-owned enterprises.
“Research from think tanks highlights that SOEs’ persistent underperformance has cost South Africa an estimated R2 trillion in lost output since 2010. Additionally, SOEs have absorbed approximately R400 billion in bailouts over the same period. A systematic review must be undertaken to shut down non-essential, failing SOEs, reducing the financial burden on taxpayers,” he said.
Governance expert and political analyst Sandile Swana said taxpayers must not agree to an increase in VAT.
He the government would have increased the gross domestic product (GDP) if it was efficient in building Eskom’s Medupe and Kusile power stations and maintaining state assets, as well as developing projects on time.
“When the GPD increases you have more money to pay the loans and to run the state. But when the state is led by incompetent people and non-performing people the country will end up being short of money its assets are not generating income,” said Swana.
“We have municipalities that are not collecting money and police that do not look after infrastructure. Therefore, the assets of the state are not performing. The taxpayers must protect themselves from wasteful politicians. Politicians are wasteful and we cannot agree to be taxed more,” he said.
Professor Mazwe Majola said the problem was that Ramaphosa was over promising and under delivering.
“He says so much and does so little. It is not right that he goes to the SONA and talks about projects and billions only to find the Treasury does not have money,” said Majola, adding that Ramaphosa should stop appeasing factionalism with the ANC and prioritise the country.