LETTER: Letter about Pravin Gordhan was incorrect
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Kudos to John Fairwell, author of an interesting but factually incorrect letter on Pravin Gordhan, now SA’s public enterprises minister (“Pravin Gordhan, architect of financial ruin, must go (”, August 4).
He asserts that SA entered the 2000s with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 43%, which was reduced to 27% by 2008 under the steady and trusted hands of then finance minister Trevor Manuel and then president Thabo Mbeki.
On May 10 2009, Jacob Zuma appointed Gordhan finance minister, and during his first five years in that position the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio increased from 27% to 47%, undoing all the hard work of his predecessor. That was the original sin, Fairwell says.
Debates about public debt help a great deal when they are both factual and in the correct economic context. I’m afraid Fairwell’s letter distorts pretty much everything. He in effect blames the December holidays for creating Christmas Day.
It is not difficult to see why he may believe Gordhan was a bad minister in previous assignments. It is clear Fairwell does not approve of the government’s outlook when it comes to SAA and aviation policy in general. Therefore, Gordhan’s record must now be rewritten to fit Fairwell’s disagreement in the debate about our economic direction.
He ignores how the SA democratic system works. The cabinet has taken a decision to save jobs and help the economy weather a number of storms related to tough economic conditions generally and the Covid-19 pandemic in particular. The department of public enterprises, the Treasury and the department of transport are implementing agencies in this regard.
Having ignored that, Fairwell then twists the facts about our recent economic performance and the Treasury’s record under Gordhan’s stewardship. We may never know why it was necessary to do this. In any event, the distorted facts do not account for the department of public enterprises’s reform agenda.
It helps to look at the trail of the 2000s, which in some ways represents our glory years. In the colloquial sense, the media boasted about the “three Ts”. Those were then Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, finance minister Trevor Manuel and president Thabo Mbeki. The three were praised for preaching the gospel of fiscal discipline and sound macroeconomics as the basis for our economic management.
That was the narrative. A number of great economists, public servants and others were the backbone behind the “three Ts” and were credited with ...
He asserts that SA entered the 2000s with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 43%, which was reduced to 27% by 2008 under the steady and trusted hands of then finance minister Trevor Manuel and then president Thabo Mbeki.
On May 10 2009, Jacob Zuma appointed Gordhan finance minister, and during his first five years in that position the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio increased from 27% to 47%, undoing all the hard work of his predecessor. That was the original sin, Fairwell says.
Debates about public debt help a great deal when they are both factual and in the correct economic context. I’m afraid Fairwell’s letter distorts pretty much everything. He in effect blames the December holidays for creating Christmas Day.
It is not difficult to see why he may believe Gordhan was a bad minister in previous assignments. It is clear Fairwell does not approve of the government’s outlook when it comes to SAA and aviation policy in general. Therefore, Gordhan’s record must now be rewritten to fit Fairwell’s disagreement in the debate about our economic direction.
He ignores how the SA democratic system works. The cabinet has taken a decision to save jobs and help the economy weather a number of storms related to tough economic conditions generally and the Covid-19 pandemic in particular. The department of public enterprises, the Treasury and the department of transport are implementing agencies in this regard.
Having ignored that, Fairwell then twists the facts about our recent economic performance and the Treasury’s record under Gordhan’s stewardship. We may never know why it was necessary to do this. In any event, the distorted facts do not account for the department of public enterprises’s reform agenda.
It helps to look at the trail of the 2000s, which in some ways represents our glory years. In the colloquial sense, the media boasted about the “three Ts”. Those were then Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, finance minister Trevor Manuel and president Thabo Mbeki. The three were praised for preaching the gospel of fiscal discipline and sound macroeconomics as the basis for our economic management.
That was the narrative. A number of great economists, public servants and others were the backbone behind the “three Ts” and were credited with ...
