Efficiency beats VAT hike

One of United States president’s most controversial executive orders since he began his second term in the White House is establishing the department of government efficiency (Doge) headed by South African-born billionaire Elon Musk.

Its most controversial action: asking all government employees to send an e-mail listing “the five things I did last week”.

Embarrassing VAT reversal

The sting in the tail was that failure to submit a response would be deemed as a resignation, thus ridding the government of all inefficient employees.

If the idea had been introduced with consideration and foresight regarding sensitive information, it would have been an excellent method to eliminate inefficiency and red tape.

One that, if adopted in South Africa, would find that R75 billion Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is looking for through the now-cancelled value-added tax (VAT) increase.

The embarrassing reversal of the 0.5-percentage point VAT hike ratified by a court on a long weekend after Godongwana submitted a letter admitting political defeat to the court hearing the DA and EFF challenge, will go down in history as the moment democracy replaced arrogance in South African politics.

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Although the finance minister is at pains to point out the R75 billion budget shortfall, he knows that inefficiency is being unearthed at all levels of government every single day.

A Doge in this country would have just this month discovered that the Gauteng provincial government owns 41 buildings across the province, but its 11 head offices are all in rented buildings.

It’s paying a whopping R34 million a month in rent, which amounts to R2.2 billion over the past five years.

It would be really easy to say this is an isolated incident and does not in any way come close.

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