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A Fin24 user compares the state of South Africa's democracy with George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, a political satire in which animals on a manor farm stage a revolution to achieve an idealistic state of justice and progress. A power-hungry pig then becomes a totalitarian dictator.
The user questions the progress we have made in the past 20 years and makes the point that "South Africa must move forward and politicians should understand that you cannot change history, but you can actually change the future for everyone".
Reducing the grant burden would help, as would "qualified and experienced personnel, especially in national service delivery companies such as water and electricity".
Responding to a call to users for tips to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene for his budget speech, Fin24 user Fanie Meintjes writes:
If you read the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, you will see we are at the point where people start realising that everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others.
What happened in the past 20 years of “democratisation"? It is sad to realise that the majority needs to be protected from the minority, for whatever reason. South Africa must move forward and politicians should understand that you cannot change history, but you can actually change the future for everyone.
Forget history - clinging to it with all you've got will hamper our country’s future.
1. No welfare system could ever be maintained as people start abusing the system and then grants become a way of living which the economy cannot afford. Read up the decline of the economy in Detroit, USA versus the growth of the economy in Japan between the years 1945 to 2011. The welfare system killed Detroit’s economy, whereas Japan’s economy turned a massive increase - they do not believe in a welfare system.
If a person is not productive, he gets fired. It is just wrong to take from someone who works to give to someone who does not want to work. The child support system should be an eye-opener as kids now have babies just to collect grants, which is wrong. The old age pension is not really a problem as these people gave their lives to this country, but I have a serious concern about the child grant system.
I would suggest that once a person receives a grant, they should be forced to refrain from having more babies until they are able to support their children. This is currently not happening and the cost is just too much for the country to bear.
2. That brings me to my second point, being the power-hungry unions. You cannot force a company to pay a worker if the company cannot afford it. The majority of workers are overpaid anyway as they are not productive. Second to that are the draconian labour laws. Companies do not want to employ staff as they then get nailed by labour laws which are more in favour of unskilled, unproductive staff.
3. Cut government spending. Kindly explain why the cost of Parliament increased from R16m in 1995 to nearly R1bn in 2014? Decrease the amount of portfolios and fill the remaining positions with people interested in their voters.
4. The amount of government employees also increased during this period but less work gets done. If a person decides to become a government employee, he/she must realise that the taxpayers are their first priority, not the last. Should they not agree, they should not be employed. And please bring back accountability. Every department used to have its own accountable person and sub-departments reported to him/her. This seems to have fallen away as no one nowadays accepts any accountability, leading to mismanagement.
5. Forget colour, we should have passed that stage after apartheid and employed qualified and experienced personnel, especially in national service delivery companies such as water and electricity. It is obvious that the current employees are hugely overpaid and cannot maintain the infrastructure.
6. The cost of tenders should be reconsidered as tender prices are way overboard. On this point I would also like to know what happened to the penalty system that used to be part and parcel of the tender system as I used to know it. The main contractors for Medupi and Kusile should have been long gone due to their non-delivery, the penalty clause should have been enforced and other contractors or sub-contractors should had been appointed to finish the work in a specified time. This point refers to any government contract but does not seem to happen.
7. If there are to be any tax hikes, I would suggest that VAT is increased as your taxpayer base is immediately broadened as everyone pays VAT, even if their income is not derived legally (prostitution, druglords and dealers, etc) and thus the income would be increased. Due to the current slow economic growth people’s income is not going up, so income tax would not really be the answer.
8. Should your focus be moved from income and company tax to VAT, you might have more people investigating the registered VAT vendors to ensure that VAT is collected and paid regularly and correctly to the South African Revenue Service (Sars).
9. I believe that the fraud section of Sars is to be dismantled, which in my opinion should not have happened as there is a lot of fraud happening, especially from within.
So my suggestions are:
1. Reduce the welfare system and rather assist the economy to grow and create jobs.
2. Reduce the power of unions and make labour laws more friendly towards the companies that actually create jobs.
3. Cut government spending and corruption.
4. Take control of government employees and ensure they are capable of doing the work they are employed for. There are people with matric who are actually better qualified to do a job than people with master's degrees.
5. We should forget about AA policies and employ skilled people with experience to get our infrastructure right.
6. More staff does not necessarily mean greater productivity but will definitely increase the staff bill, with reduced amounts available for government capital spending.
7. Look at tender costs and bring back the penalty system for people not finishing contracted tenders on time.
8. Rather increase VAT, even on a sliding scale, as everyone then pays tax where currently the tax base does not affect everyone earning income.
9. Keep the fraud department at Sars to investigate fraud, especially from within.
If I step on toes here, it is not my intention but I am sure that if the above matters are attended to in the correct manner, it should help steer our economy towards the right direction.
* Send your budget tips to Minister Nhlanhla Nene.
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published in MyBudget have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
