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In Matthew Lester’s latest installment he looks at the role of a Finance Minister, and not from the traditional position of manager of the country’s finances. Its a discussion sparked by Brexit up north and all the talk of State Capture and corrupted tenders in South Africa – making one accountable for many things outside the initial job description. Lester paints particular reference to a Finance Minister’s role of being an unpopular one, only because they have the ability to say NO. Something which got Pravin Gordhan fired, and then hired again. It’s not quite the toughest job in South Africa, that’s Mark Barnes and the Post Office, but it’s still not a role everyone’s putting there hand up for. – Stuart Lowman.
By Matthew Lester*
The oddball in the room at a cabinet meeting must be minister of finance. As my friends at national treasury and SARS have so often told me ‘a good minister of finance is an unpopular bloke. Because he has the ability to say No!’
British Prime Minister Tony Blair had Gordon Brown as his chancellor and it worked. But when Blair finally left and Brown finally made it to prime minister it wasn’t long before the Labour government fell.
Then came David Cameron as prime minister and his Chancellor George Osborne. They looked like a head boy and his monitor. But it worked. Osborne knows what he is doing as a chancellor. Otherwise he would never have got away with his austerity measures and fiscal rules. That clout is worth a great deal.
After 6 years of Cameron obviously Osborne expected to be rewarded with a crack at Prime Minister. But Boris hit that to leg.
The day after the Brexit vote one would have thought that Osborne would fall on his sword along with Cameron and go looking for fancy board appointments with the many allies from the Remain campaign. After all, he made some horrific gaffs in the Brexit campaign.
But just three days later, after a weekend off, Osborne is suddenly the man to watch.
Nothing is certain in this story. But right now conservative party is not spoilt for choice. They can go with the Cameronite Theresa May, not exactly a winning image, and almost inevitably face a general election. Or they can knip this all in the bud and get behind Boris Johnson who, by his own admission, has no plan to implement Brexit. Both options will fail without the financial nerd, George Osborne.
I bet the last thing the European Union is expecting is for George Osborne to enter the negotiations.
We have witnessed the same in South Africa. Mbeki went unchallenged with Trevor Manuel in charge. And Manuel’s natural successor was always Pravin Gordhan, the rock that backed up Manuel for 13 years.
But Gordhan has the ability to say No! And he applies it liberally. That just didn’t suit JZ. So Gordhan’s understudy, Nene, got the job. And it just didn’t work when he said No! So then came Nenegate and JZ had little option but to recall Gordhan.
Good ministers of finance, chancellors etc are a rare breed. And in times of crisis they are needed more than ever.
* Rhodes University Professor Matthew Lester was educated at St Johns College, Wits and Rhodes universities. He is a chartered accountant who has worked at Deloitte, SARS and BDO Spencer Steward. A member of the Davis Tax Committee investigating the structure of aspects of the RSA tax system, he is based in Grahamstown.
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