Politics.za

In what can only cap off a controversial day, Trevor Manuel has claimed that he has no desire to be president as he “loved his freedom too much to take up the country’s top post” although he will gladly continue to serve as Finance Minister.

Now long time readers will know we are Manuel supporters here at Politics.za so this makes us kind of sad. However there might still be hope! Manuel states that currently the president’s security has to literally “send out dogs and that just does not fit in with my lifestyle”. Well you can still be president and not send out dogs… right? Right?!?

Demonstrating again why he probably can’t wait till the end of the year to leave his office, Auditor-General Shauket Fakie has had to take the finances of Marine Coastal Management to task saying that their books are kept so badly that it’s not even possible to give an opinion on their financial state.

Some of the problems the auditor-general’s report lists are that MCM has no debtor system in place; supplier statements totalling R8,6-million could not be provided; documentation to verify contractual commitments for R86-million could not be provided; no employees’ tax was deducted, nor could it be determined how much MCM owed Sars because there was not enough documentation.

Astonishingly, after the amount of poached perlemoen confiscated, the inventory for confiscated marine products was valued at zero.

The Supreme Court of Appeals has ruled that government is now liable for damages to businesses who lose tenders due to corrupt officials. This is potentially very damaging for governments and provides a very big incentive for government to get rid of corruption extremely quickly lest they be liable for hundreds of millions of Rands in claims from businesses that lost tenders due to bribery and graft.

Just in Cape Town alone the damages that could be liable due to Mr Ten Percent could be quite large.

I might have spoken a bit too soon when I said in a previous entry that Trevor Manuel has been keeping his head low in the intra-tripartite alliance fighting that has erupted over the past few months. In an article initially released on the ANC Today newsletter (and then taken off their website) and published in the Sunday Times, Manuel commits the ANC to carrying out the aims of GEAR, goverments policy for economic growth using business, and balancing it with the RDP and implies that the other members of the tripartite alliance agree with it.

COSATU disagrees and claim that GEAR was basically forced upon them and they would be much happier if the more ‘revolutionary programme’ of the RDP was the sole manner for government to address the country’s ills. Manuel seems to hope that GEAR, along with the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative headed by Deputy Preisdet Mlambo Ngcuka, will grow the economy pass the 6% and actually help to fund the aims of the RDP.

Trevor Manuel hardly ever makes statements outside his portfolio and has been keeping extremely quiet during the Zuma trial, no doubt to deflect any public attention from any presidential ambitions he might have (hopefully leading to a stealth victory at the ANC NEC 2007). However he has now come out publicly in suport of the proposed code of ethics that the ANC hopes to regulate it’s members dealings in business, spcefically the multi-million Rand BEE deals that so many high up ANC members have decided is their path to riches.

This is quite a good political move by Manuel. Firstly he himself is, thankfully , untouched by any BEE deals giving him some ammo against BEE deal recipient and probable presidential contender Cyril Ramaphosa. Secondlly massive BEE deals seem to be becoming more and more unpopular as people realise it probably results in the ‘empowerment’ (to the tunes of millions of Rands) of a few people including, ironcially enough, fellow BEE ethics task team member Saki Macozoma. Thirdly following President Mbeki’s statements on the same issue and COSATU’s statements in support of the code of ethics allow him to gain support from both camps.

It’s a bit of a sad comment on government beauracracy when the most pleasurable department to deal with is SARS – the taxman. Today I handed in my income tax forms (which are due in 2 days) and thinking I would be standing in massive queues with the other sleepyheads who suddenly realised the 14th of July is five days away, not 3 weeks away.

Luckily when I arrived at the SARS office, SARS had set up a marquee outside fully staffed with clerks (I counted 10) processing people’s forms and giving out receipts, so there was a 20 second wait before I was served And if you didn’t want to hang around for a receipt they had people standing in the road with signs round their necks that read “Tax Form Dropoff” who were collecting forms from passing motorists who just stuck their brown envelope out the window. Now that’s service.

Contrast that to my trip to the traffic department two months ago which had 2 tellers out of the 8 windows open, and took 2 hours to process 20 people.

Well tomorrow Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will be giving his tenth national budget. This is probably the most important speech given in parliament during the year (even more so than the State of the Nation in my opinion) as it actually produces tangiable results.

With the introduction of the ASGI I expect a budget geared to unlock growth, with further tax cuts and relaxation of foreign currency exchange controls.

I’m hoping for efforts to make SA exporters more competitive, a massive boost in public transport and hopefully radical telecommunications liberalisation. I know that last item really isn’t in Manuel’s portfolio but seeing as our current Minister of Communications seems to be asleep at the wheel who better than Manuel and when better than tomorrow?

Knowing that the ANC will do whatever they can to piss off the DA, Trevor Manuel must be feeling his chance of going all the way to the presidency is getting slimmer and slimmer with every arrival of the DA weekly email newsletter.

Manuel is one of the few ANC top dogs to get praise from the DA and this weeks newsletter was no different, first starting off with a hearty congrats for getting GDP growth to 5.1% and then copiously quoting Manuel as if he was Helen Suzman guiding the DA down the correct path to take.

If Manuel is ever overlooked by the ANC in the presidential succession battle you can be damn sure that the DA will be sending non-stop gift baskets and flowers to the Manuel-Ramos household trying to get Manuel to jump to the DA. Not that it will ever happen but even Tony Leon’s got to have a dream right?

And his list of potential successors is rather lean at the moment.

You know Trevor Manuel must get some smug satsifaction being an overachiever. Under his tutelage SARS has become one the most, if not the most, effective departments in all of government. Now with some new legislation about to be added to the Tax Act he will turn SARS into money hunting terminators from the future.

This is however actually something to look forward to. Sure we all tremble at the thought of stern faced, suit wearing automatons knocking at the front door wanting to enquire about those unit trusts we didn’t declare on our IT3 forms but with their increased collection abilities we can expect further income tax cuts in the future.

So uh… yay SARS!