Allowing financially illiterate President Jacob Zuma to impose his ideas on South Africa’s fiscal policy is akin to handing a practicing alcoholic keys to the booze cabinet. In both instances, the consequences in terms of money and general misery is sure to be high. Leading independent economist Azar Jammine has done the numbers and estimates Zuma’s firing of respected Finance Minister Nhanhla Nene has raised the country’s debt servicing costs by between R1.5bn and R2bn a year with more to come. Add in the wipe-out on the stock market, the plunge in bond prices and the smashed currency and the decision has cost the country at least ten times that. Like the upgrades to Nkandla and his proposed R4bn jet, Zuma appears to have no conception this is not actually his money to waste. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t care that the State’s income is reluctantly contributed by taxpayers and belongs not to politicians and their cronies, but to the country as a whole. A rational brain would have absorbed the lesson provided by Gauteng’s 90% boycott of e-tolls. Some people, clearly, are very slow learners. – Alec Hogg

By Azar Jammine*

Following the shock announcement by President Zuma on Wednesday night regarding his intention to redeploy Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene to another position and to replace him with David Van Rooyen, the latter took the oath as new Finance Minister in Parliament on Thursday.