By Paul Hoffman 

The collective responsibility and accountability of the multi-party Cabinet of the GNU does not derive from the ANC’s notion of democratic centralism. It derives from the Constitution, our supreme law.

There seems to be a good prospect of the fracas in politics in South Africa over the ANC’s proposed VAT increase being resolved amicably and without any damage of a terminal nature to the Government of National Unity (GNU).

The shortfall of about R13-billion that was meant to be covered by the intended increase in VAT can be met by improved tax collection, trimming of fat in the Budget on those various non-essential items and/or by utilising about R89-billion in pension and other benefits that remain unclaimed despite all efforts to find those entitled to the investments.

During the debate in the National Assembly, acrimonious as it was, Songezo Zibi, the leader of Rise Mzansi, did remark — on the basis of his knowledge and experience as Chairperson of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) — that the country “has debt service costs (interest the country pays) of R442-billion per year, or R8.5-billion per week”.

It is scandalous that our politicians have been so irresponsible as to increase the nation’s debt to these proportions. The first order of business of the GNU, that was formed from 10 political parties represented in Parliament after the May 2024 general elections, ought to be to reduce the burden of that debt to the taxpayers of South Africa.

In order to do so, it will be necessary to create jobs in their millions. At present, 28 million people draw South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grants of some kind or another every month, and many of them want, but can’t find, jobs. The rate of unemployment is scandalously high with or without the inclusion in the statistics of discouraged work seekers who have given up looking for a job.

Investor-friendly environment

The creation of jobs involves the government developing an investor-friendly environment in which business confidence is boosted. The efficient provision of services, especially energy, transport, road and rail infrastructure that works to oil the wheels of industry and commerce, is essential.

The reduction of crime and corruption and the demonstration of fealty to the rule of law are the main ways in which the government can help create the necessary investment climate that will attract new investors to create new jobs.

There are lessons to be learned from the contestation around the fiscal framework that was presented to Parliament without the buy-in of two of the bigger parties in the GNU, namely the DA and the FF Plus.

The first lesson is that coalitions can be made to work properly if the parties involved adhere to the rules and tenets of the Constitution. The whole debacle could have been avoided altogether if unanimity in Cabinet could have been achieved before the fiscal framework was presented to Parliament.

Instead, a game of brinkmanship was played out in the Cabinet and parliamentary debates. Posturing continued in the ensuing litigation, impugning the constitutionality and legality of the actions of the hastily cobbled together majority vote.

Conditional support

That vote included the support from some small parties who are not in the GNU and whose support was conditional (on a legally questionable basis), and probably transactional too.

Had the minister of finance paid due attention to the provisions of Section 92 of the Constitution, the matter would have played out differently. He would have recognised that Cabinet acts collectively and is accountable to Parliament and responsible to the people of South Africa for its decision making.

Instead of collective Cabinet agreement on the Budget, there was a deadlock — now apparently resolved — no collective agreement and a half-baked attempt at pushing through a Budget that did not enjoy the support of the members of the Cabinet who are in the DA and the FF Plus.

As veteran ACDP Member of Parliament Steve Swart pointed out during the debate, no one bothered to obtain an opinion from senior counsel as to the legalities of the novel situation in which the Cabinet and Parliament, being the bodies at the head of the executive and legislative arms of government, found themselves when the objections to the legality of presenting the Budget were debated somewhat vigorously in Parliament.

The points taken in opposition to the budgetary process during the debate were then refined, expanded and included in legal proceedings aimed at reviewing and temporarily interdicting the entire Budget process pending determination of the legality and constitutionality of the process that was followed without unanimity in Cabinet.

Both the propriety and advisability of the approach taken by the minister of finance on a VAT hike, and of allowing bracket creep for income taxpayers too, were still in issue in the Cabinet when the matter was put to the vote in Parliament.

Those opposing the urgent application of the DA, in which the EFF and MK party have added their voices, have probably been advised that their actions will not withstand judicial scrutiny and will not pass constitutional muster. They would have known that before the debate began if they had heeded the advice of Steve Swart, a lawyer himself.

Hard to reconcile

The second lesson is that diametrically opposed political philosophies are hard to reconcile in coalitions in which those at loggerheads for 30 years or more find themselves in the same Cabinet for the first time.

Before coalition politics at a national level emerged last year, the Budget process was a smooth and seamless formality. The process was controlled entirely by the ANC and any dissent around the framework within the ANC was ironed out in accordance with the tenets of the “democratic centralism” that was and always has been the governmental modus operandi of the ANC dominant party majority.

The collective responsibility and accountability of the multi-party Cabinet of the GNU does not derive from the notion of democratic centralism. It derives from the Constitution, our supreme law. The term and notion “democratic centralism” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

It is accordingly plain that the old habits of the ANC, which apparently did reach internal (democratic centralism style) consensus on what it presented to the National Assembly, died hard and left the Cabinet in a position in which it was not actually able to take collective responsibility and accountability for the fiscal framework the minister presented in Parliament.

The motivating force behind the ANC has long been its attachment to the tenets of the National Democratic Revolution, which seeks to secure hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society in order to bring about the national democratic society in which the deployed cadres of that revolution are comprehensively in charge of everything that counts in the country.

All of the other members of the GNU embrace the Constitution as their guiding light. It expressly calls for a multi-party system of government that is open, accountable and responsive. It spells out the values and principles according to which the public administration and state-owned enterprises should function. Cadre deployment and hegemony are not among the values listed in Section 195(1) of the Constitution.

The clash between revolutionary and constitutional values led to the dispute over the Budget. Yet, in the invitation to join the GNU that was extended by the president on the instructions of the National Executive Committee of the ANC, there was no mention of revolution and, on the contrary, an undertaking to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.

Uneasy truce

Whether or not the uneasy truce that follows from the ironing out of differences over the Budget will hold will be made clear soon when Parliament debates two bills, both private member’s bills introduced already by Glynnis Breytenbach, the former shadow minister of justice and co-chair of the Justice Portfolio Committee in the National Assembly.

Her bills are aimed at establishing and enabling a new Chapter Nine Institution called the Anti-Corruption Commission. This will not be a toothless commission of inquiry. On the contrary, it will have a mandate to prevent, combat, detect, investigate and prosecute serious corruption and organised crime in South Africa in a manner that is constitutionally compliant.

It will seek to be formed in a manner consistent with the rulings made by the Constitutional Court in the Glenister litigation. These rulings bind the government and can be enforced by litigation in which declaratory, mandatory and supervisory relief could be claimed should more than a third of those in Parliament be so ill advised as to vote against the bills.

The ANC talks a lot about its “renewal”. It has lost popularity and had shed splinter parties like the UDM, Cope, the EFF and MK over the years. The revolutionary intent of the ANC is not in sync with the transformative intent of the Constitution. The ANC in its renewal debate will have to consider an approach that aligns with the transformation of South Africa, not an unattainable revolution.

After revolutionary politics for more than 30 years, South Africa has a budgetary crisis, greater inequality, joblessness, endemic poverty and rampant corruption. The revolution has failed. It ought to be abandoned now.

The conundrum is whether it is possible for the ANC to give up its revolutionary guise and behave as a responsible, constitutionally aligned political party. Who knows? DM