Budget speech could further widen rift between Cyril’s ANC and party’s left

This year’s budget should be more interesting than any other before, because it’s a test for both newly appointed Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s leadership mettle against the left within the ruling party.

As Godongwana presents his inaugural budget speech in parliament, the question is whether he will support the president’s idea, or side with the left on the debate around whether the private sector should lead job creation and not the state.

But political economy analyst Daniel Silke said the left could continue to battle Ramaphosa, or even Godongwana if he emulated the president in fraternising with the private sector.

“Ramaphosa has thrown down the gauntlet to the left and almost challenged them in a sense with his assertion it is the private sector that creates jobs and not the state. This is quite an ideological challenge for the ANC.

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“Ramaphosa risked some political capital, which he had not been prepared to do until now, but the inability of the state to create jobs leaves him no choice but to move towards a closer relationship with the private sector.

“I think it’s Ramaphosa taking some political risk. But there is now a clear intent by Ramaphosa, which would be backed up by Godongwana quite clearly, that opportunities need to be created for greater public/private participation and improvement of special economic zones to give concessions to businesses,” he said.

The left must decide whether the ANC is ideologically compatible with them or bite the bullet and leave the alliance and contest elections on their own. Political analyst Prof Barry Hanyane from North-West University said there were socio-economic anomalies in SA that required state intervention. But the state should be allowed to create an enabling environment for the private sector to create jobs and bring in investments.

“By and large, Godongwana is caught up in a frenzy – to appease the alliance partners and prove the ANC remains the custodian of the working class in general and the poor in particular and to satisfy the interests of the haves,” Hanyane said.

Godongwana is former general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) – which is considered the most militant and worker-focused trade union. But should he side with business, Numsa, Zwelinzima Vavi’s SA Federation of Trade Unions and its civil society allies would be on his case.

For Ramaphosa, the choice is to either push ahead with promised structural reforms or give in to the wall of pressure from the left. But his lack of backbone was exposed when he threw Tito Mboweni to the hyenas along with his Economic Transformation, Inclusive Growth and Competitiveness: Towards an Economic Strategy for SA proposals.

Ramaphosa just did not implement the proposals. Mboweni proposed the implementation of a series of growth reforms that promoted economic transformation, supported labour-intensive growth and created a globally competitive economy. He envisaged potential growth of between two to three percentage points and over one million job opportunities.

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The left cornered the demoralised minister, forcing him to subsequently ask to be excused from Cabinet. Godongwana has proven to be a hard nut to crack and a fighter. As one of the CR17 foot soldiers, he crossed swords with the radical economic transformation forces within the ANC who demanded the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank.

As chair of the ANC economic transformation sub-committee, he told the Zuma camp in no uncertain terms that “it won’t happen”.

Godongwana, as a former unionist, is perceived to be a leftist, but economic reality forced him to endorse neo-liberalism.

– ericn@citizen.co.za