WHEN President Jacob Zuma announced his cabinet in May, many people saw the shifting of Trevor Manuel from Treasury to the Presidency as a sideways move to a non-job. Zuma was at pains at the time to explain that in fact Manuel's job was a big post responsible for overseeing how planning was done throughout government.
It is important to remember that this had happened at a time when suspicions around the alleged influence of the ANC's alliance partners on the new President was at fever pitch amongst business people. Manuel was seen as the face of continuity of the known economic and finance programmes.
Everyone, including the alliance partners such as Cosatu and the SACP, understood this and were willing and prepared to live with the reality that Manuel, the face of the Mbeki economic policies, was going to play an important role in "their" government. The spin through which the rand had gone when Manuel semi-resigned after Mbeki's departure last year had been a lesson for everyone.
But it seems there is a new boldness in the air. Manuel is now a subject of a vitriolic attack, accused by Cosatu in particular of becoming a super minister and in the process eclipsing their man Ebrahim Patel. And now Zuma says Manuel is just another ordinary minister.
Mbeki's man
Which should be true, but the attack on Manuel, while predicated on the green paper that outlines how planning and co-ordination was going to happen within government, is in fact part of an effort to rid the new government of people seen to be Mbeki supporters.
Manuel is seen as having served his purpose of calming the markets and is now discardable. The remnants of the "class project" have to be rooted out to ensure a smooth ride of the new ideology.
And that ideology's chief representative in government is Patel, who apparently finds himself with a ministry, an office, a cheaper car than Blade Nzimande and staff but nothing much to do. Hence the call by Cosatu, his sponsors, that he should be made the main man.
When the new government was put together, it was a patch work to meet demands and expectations of those who had ensured Zuma's victory. Questions were raised about what Patel, finance minister Pravin Gordhan, trade and industry minister Rob Davies and Manuel were going to all do around economic development. People wanted to know who would be responsible for what and how turf wars were going to be mediated.
The chickens are now coming home to roost, as Patel seems to have gone back to his Cosatu friends to say he did not have much to do and that Manuel was the key man and not him. Can Manuel survive or rather, would he have the stomach to hang around when people who are supposed to be his comrades call him names and demand that his wings be clipped?
The whole debacle is part of the big battle within the ANC over who makes economic policy or whose economic policy rules the day. The South African Communist Party and Cosatu have a socialist bent to their views while the ANC is a middle of the road right of centre organisation when it comes to economics.
The outcome of Cosatu's conference last week is an indication of how intense the struggle for control of economic direction is right now. The demand, for example, for a working class representative in the board of governors of the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb), is a case in point.
While many have denounced the call for a worker representative in the Sarb board, I think it is a correct and reasonable step. Working people of this country create the wealth that is the basis of the Sarb's work. Their input through a properly mandated representative who would of course understand economics, would be an important addition to the debates that precede the bank's major decisions.
The federation has economists whose inclination is to the working class and they would make invaluable inputs and hopefully in the process also learn a thing or two. To just dismiss this as a loony proposal is to radically miss the point.
- Fin24.com