Selling our children short
Published on December 28, 2016
By 1994 the Apartheid Government had borrowed against South Africa’s future in an attempt to uphold the untenable principle of separate development. At that time with a debt ratio of about 50% of GDP our children were faced with a future of repaying their errant parents debt well into the future.
Under the conservative stewardship of first Nelson Mandela and after him Thabo Mbeki Finance Minister Trevor Manual was allowed to reel in excess expenditure and prudently repay the country’s debt.
By the time Jacob came to power Manuel had performed a minor miracle in reducing the National Debt to Gross Domestic Product to below 30%. South Africa was once again looking attractive to foreign investors and Foreign Direct Investment, upon which the South African Economy critically relies, was looking bullish.
With Zuma at the helm the wheels came off.
With a Debt to GDP ratio back up near fifty percent our children’s’ futures are once more in hock. Additionally, with Zuma relentlessly pursuing a nuclear build program, which the country does not need and certainly cannot afford, our kids, Black, Colored, Asian and White, do not have a future in South Africa.
Zuma has probably already banked the commission receivable on the nuclear deal with his pension manager. And greed begets the other six deadly sins.
I have this to say to Zuma: ‘Pay back the money’.