Minister Tito Mboweni flanked by Deputy Minister Modli Gungubele and Director General Dondi Mogajane arrive in parliament for the Budget 2019 Speech [Photo: GCIS]
Minister Tito Mboweni flanked by Deputy Minister Modli Gungubele and Director General Dondi Mogajane arrive in parliament for the Budget 2019 Speech [Photo: GCIS]
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is making quite a habit of being the ANC’s unofficial “outspoken spokesperson”. He’s no stranger to finding himself at odds with the party’s official policies and may have just put his foot in it again on Sunday night. The politician shared his thoughts on 25 years of democracy, as well as the Eskom situation.
Mboweni is perhaps a bit more centre than his left-leaning colleagues. That came across when he tackled the load shedding problem on Power FM’s ‘Power Perspective’ show. The minister blasted those who have “elevated state ownership to the status of religion”, insisting that citizens must now ask themselves what SOEs
“The bulk of jobs will come from private sector. You have to be careful to avoid elevating state ownership to [the status of] a religion. That’s dangerous. From time to time, people think state ownership is the be all and end all. It’s not. Some of our SOEs are a disaster. Is it not time we debated if we really need all these state-owned companies?”
Tito Mboweni
Tito Mboweni questions how SOEs are run
Many will see this as a shift towards privatisation from the finance minister. He has asked Pravin Gordhan for a list of non-core state assets, as Mboweni plans to assess what these state-supported entities are costing the taxpayers. He claims that these discussions are “essential” for the country to move forward.
If there’s one thing you get from Mboweni, it’s frankness. Many will see his tone as quite refreshing, whereas his ANC colleagues may be hiding behind the sofa every time he speaks his mind. Already this year, Tito has found himself at loggerheads with the public protector and official government policy on South African Airways.
Finance minister: “We did not defeat the apartheid system”
It seems upsetting the apple-cart is his thing now his thing. Mboweni went on to question just how much of apartheid the ANC managed to dismantle when they came into power after 1994.
He lamented the fact that “compromise” had held the government back, and there had been some form of over-compensation. He blamed his colleagues for making South Africa too “Africanist” (pro-African), rather than attempting to achieve a goal of non-racialism.
“Our forces did not defeat the apartheid system. We thought we would walk into Pretoria and take everything; defeat the National Party government, take over and implement our policies the way we wanted to. The fact of the matter is that we had to negotiate a settlement.”
“From time to time, I’ve had a feeling that we have become too narrow Africanist. Most of the appointments that we make in the public service, for example, are very Africanist. This does not represent a democratic non-racial, non-sexist society.”
Tito Mboweni
Even for Tito, this was quite a set of claims. The in-depth interview ran for more than two hours, as the minister took questions from callers and host Thabiso Kotane. It turned out to be blockbuster entertainment for a Sunday night.
