After the Bell: Announcing a Budget is one thing; reform is quite another

Watching Enoch Godongwana standing up in the Cape Town International Convention Centre (standing in as Parliament) to deliver the third Budget he’s written this year was a surreal experience. So much has changed since his first speech.

Back then, you could still swim in the evenings, there was hope our economy would grow this year and Kaizer Chiefs hadn’t won anything for a decade. That’s all changed now.

It is frankly so weird to be doing something three times in one year. And yet, somehow, the broken and burnt parliamentary building is a fitting backdrop to this entire process.

It was clear, to me at least, that one of the most important things Godongwana had to do was to restore the legitimacy and credibility of the coalition government. 

It would be impossible for us to have another Budget. Each time the finance minister speaks in public, the coalition government’s voice is weakened. And in politics, if you make a promise and you can’t follow through on it, you are made weaker still. 

It had become a joke.

And while it’s easy to personalise this and make it about Godongwana, that would be a mistake. In fact, as I was watching his speech, I thought to myself that actually the credibility of the entire coalition was on the line.

If the coalition disagrees again in public, if there is another fight, more evidence that they cannot agree, then the coalition may as well no longer exist. It will not be able to achieve anything. It will be in office, but not really in power.

Speaking at the media briefing before his speech, Godongwana was quite clear on the topic of credibility. 

“If S&P does a review in the midst of this mess and doesn’t change their assessment [of South Africa], that gives us credibility. I am quite confident that the National Treasury has credibility in the markets and with the institutions that matter for them. Political credibility is mine. We must be clear about the difference between political and economic credibility,” he said. 

Unfortunately, Godongwana giving a successful speech with no problems is just the beginning of the real test.

In his speech, he said that “underperforming programmes will be closed as the 2026 MTEF Budget process undergoes redesign”. He also promised that “new reforms will target infrastructure planning and implementation across provinces and municipalities”.

And he says the president has “undertaken” to work with Treasury to “identify wasteful, inefficient and underperforming programmes”.

This is probably the most important part of Godongwana’s speech. He is telling you and I that the government is going to change, that it is going to cut back on the unbelievable amount of money that is wasted and so often simply stolen from us.

Watching him say it filled me with optimism. It means, clearly, that the parties in the coalition must have, I hope, all signed up to this.

So, okay, this is good, the minister has said it, and I can’t believe that he is lying that President Cyril Ramaphosa (who, as I write this, is putting on his hard hat for that meeting in the Oval Office) really does back this.

But it is going to take so much more than just support from the president for there to be real change.

It can sometimes be forgotten that when money is wasted or stolen, someone somewhere benefits. And this money got into the Budget process, into the council or the state-owned enterprise (SOE) or the province or the department somehow. It got included in the Budget in the first place because first someone wanted it, and then, second, because that person was able to shout loud enough that they got it.

As anyone living in Johannesburg will tell you, when you turn on a tap and no water comes out, you tend to notice.

And you are often disturbed by this fact. After shouting and screaming, you feel you must act. You want to deal with the person who caused your thirst.

And this surely means that many people, in many departments, and councils and SOEs, and goodness knows where else, are going to shout and scream.

In fact, it could be quite fun to see which union shouts the loudest about which department.

I also wonder if the president and Treasury are going to tell us, explicitly, which programmes they’re going to cut. Are they really going to shout it from the hills (which would be good for democracy and accountability), or are they going to hide it in some document somewhere where only Daily Maverick reporter Ed Stoddard will find it.

If I were Ramaphosa, I would think it’s good politics to actually do this all in public. Show us what you are doing and why you are doing it. And if people shout and scream, then we will know who they are.

But in the real world, where water doesn’t come out of our taps so often, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think Ramaphosa may be scared of the fight, and the ANC simply lacks the authority to do it.

Godongwana has probably passed the first test this afternoon. He delivered a Budget, he seems to have the political support to pass it.

I fear this government might fail the more important and longer test.

I bet you are not surprised. DM