‘It’s not a very bad budget, given the circumstances’ – Julius Malema

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s budget speech received positive feedback from an unlikely quarter when Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema welcomed key aspects of it, including the hot-potato sovereign wealth fund the firebrand leader previously opposed.

Malema, speaking in an interview in parliament, gave Mboweni the benefit of doubt, citing the fact that the minister did not have much room to manoeuvre as the current economic conditions were unfavourable.

“We welcome the budget, we know the conditions are not favourable and we find ourselves in a very tight situation.

“We welcome particularly the establishment of the state-owned bank and the sovereign wealth fund and we also welcome the fact that the minister has committed to spend on small businesses.”

However, Malema said the EFF was not impressed with the fact that the minister had reduced the allocation to local municipalities.

“Local municipalities are the real government, according to our people. They don’t know what Treasury is, they don’t know what international relations is. What they know is local government.

“We thought the minister should have actually increased money to local government,” he said.

On the public sector wage bill, he said: “The employer now wants to renegotiate the big deal they made with workers and try to get out of it. We don’t welcome that move.

“We want the employer to honour the deal they had with the workers and make sure that in the next negotiations they negotiate much better. Otherwise, it’s not a very bad budget, given the circumstances,” Malema said.

This is what else Malema had to say about Mboweni’s big announcements:

Question: What is behind your turnaround on the sovereign wealth fund which you previously opposed? 

Answer: The sovereign wealth fund is an EFF idea. What we said is that after the president stole the EFF’s idea, he has never honoured it. The minister says we are now establishing the sovereign wealth fund. There is no deadline or timeframe. He says he will still come back to us for relevant legislation. We will wait for that time.

The idea of the sovereign wealth fund comes from EFF. Proposals were made in this parliament, including for the state-owned banks. We had formally proposed legislation to amend the Banks Act of SA to allow for state-owned banks.

Today they come with the bank, even though we said we doubt they will establish it. Because of pressure they now want to establish the bank because they realised the EFF’s suggestion is the most practical one to make a decisive intervention in the financial sector.

Q: The public wage bill cut – what is the possibility the unions will oppose it? Will the EFF oppose it?

A: We will oppose it. We want the workers to be honoured. Workers have made plans according to the agreement. The agreement must be worth the paper it is written on. We shouldn’t say we have a three-year agreement only to be told halfway through that the agreement can no longer be honoured.

We know the situation. The minister will have to find money somewhere to realise this commitment. We cannot allow that the workers be disorganised at this stage.

Going to the new negotiations with the new bargaining chambers, let them start a proper engagement that will be suitable to the economic conditions as they are.

Q: Mboweni said Eskom is tired.

A: He speaks of the structuring of SOEs (state-owned enterprises). Eskom is not a tired topic. For as long as there is load shedding in this country, Eskom will never be a tired issue. IPPs (Independent Power Producers) will never be a tired issue. We want the deals to be cancelled. If they are not cancelled, they must be renegotiated and they must be affordable. Otherwise we will never support that initiative.

On Friday, The EFF is marching to Eskom to demand the cancelling of IPPs, to demand load shedding be stopped with immediate effect and that Eskom supply reliable electricity. Eskom must not be privatised and should not retrench workers. We want SOEs to be a good source of employment creation.

The same goes for SAA. SAA will never be a tired issue. We cannot have a one line national airline. We want a real national airline. It can’t be a tired issue for as long as they want to reduce it to one line.

We want money to be put in SAA and Eskom and capable people to run these institutions so they begin to generate money.

rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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