Gordhan must 'show he's boss'

Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance and Congress of the People on Monday called on Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to show he is firmly in control of macro-economic policy when he tables his first medium-term budget policy statement on Tuesday.

The parties said it was up to the former revenue service commissioner to show that "the centre will hold" and that the left would not be allowed to dictate economic policy.

"We stand at a crossroads where elements within the ruling party alliance, with a clear populist agenda, are increasingly micro-managing the government.

"If this trend continues to prevail, the potential impact of changes to the macro-economic policy will be a blow to consistency and will send the wrong signals to participants in the economy," they said in a statement.

At a joint press conference, DA and Cope MPs called on Gordhan to continue on the course former finance minister Trevor Manuel struck in his 14 years at the helm.

They said he should hold steady on taxes and keep up infrastructure and social spending, which in the absence of tax hikes would mean more borrowing given widely-accepted deficit forecasts of just under eight percent.

The DA's Dion George said greater borrowing would call for greater prudence and discipline in state spending.

"I hope he has the power to stay stop wasting money because every cent we have is borrowed money," he said.

George called on Gordhan to take a clear ideological stance amid the infighting on economic policy and leadership plaguing government and "look beyond communism".

"We hope he says to Cosatu nationalisation is not going to work," he said. "We would like him to stand up and say I'm in charge of macro-economic policy."

Cope's Smuts Ngonyama urged Gordhan to show "which side he is going to take."

The parties also urged the minister not to allocate further bail-outs to stricken state-owned enterprises, but rather furnish them with good governance guidelines, including caps of executives salaries.

- Sapa