Few countries in transition have managed to get a grip on their public finances as well as South Africa did after 1994. Now, just more than 20 years later, the nation’s credibility and the democratic project lie in tatters as we teeter on the brink of a political and fiscal cliff. Business confidence and investment have evaporated along with clean, accountable government, causing South Africa to be downgraded to junk status, crushing the country’s growth potential and pushing it towards a debt trap. How did we land up in this mess, and can we pull back from the brink? Claire Bisseker, the award-winning economics editor of the 'Financial Mail', unpacks the crisis in this accessible and highly readable guide to what makes our economy tick.
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Claire Bisseker. On the Brink
Foreword
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction
PART 1
1 #ZumaMustFall
2 Checkmate
3 All the president’s friends: An analysis of state capture
PART 2
4 The decline in South Africa’s public finances
5 South Africa’s fiscal cliff-hanger
PART 3
6 Lost in the wilderness
7 Behind closed doors
8 Myths and legends
9 Manufacturing and mining: The missing links in South Africa’s economy
PART 4
10 The future is not what it used to be1
Notes and references
Acronyms and abbreviations
Illustration sources
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ON THE BRINK
SOUTH AFRICA’S POLITICAL
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‘South Africa’s very future is at risk,’ said Michael Spicer, former head of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA). ‘The stakes are enormously high. My worry is that South Africa is heading towards a Putin-type authoritarian state – one that is enormously corrupt, riddled with patronage and an undermining of all the key institutions.’17
Gordhan’s view, that the campaign against him by the Hawks was part of a bigger attack on the integrity of the Treasury, was bolstered by the demand by 27 former director-generals for an urgent independent public inquiry into the alleged capture of the state by the Gupta family. ‘Unless these challenges are attended to urgently, our country may be plunged into a crisis of governance and [it could] lead to the collapse of public services in general,’ they warned in a press statement.18
