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IT HAD been a disastrous week: the downgrading by Standard & Poor's of South Africa's foreign currency rating to one level above junk status and the ratings outlook lowered to ‘negative’.
READ: SA heading for junk status unless GDP grows
And then in stepped our president, who has never disappointed when it comes to the bad timing of disastrous decisions, and effectively fired a competent minister of finance, Nhlanhla Nene, and replaced him with someone nobody had ever heard of – David van Rooyen.
It’s a bit like telling your teenage kids the one day that you are divorcing their mother, and the next that you are getting married to someone they have never met - and expecting no fallout, because you’re the one in charge and what you say goes. Well, it went.
In the world of finance, justice is swift and immediate. Within 36 hours the rand was sniffing R16/$ and over R24/£. And what millions in the country were staring at for Christmas was the prospect of unemployment, higher interest rates and increasingly spiralling food costs. Merry Christmas, everyone!
READ: Rand weakens to near record after Nene axing
The ANC Youth League said on Friday that Nene was not sufficiently important to cause the rand to fall. It’s not Nene, guys, it’s our giggling president. If he can do this, what else is he capable of? I would rather not find out.
Over the centuries many politicians have discovered the hard way that there are just some things that cannot be legislated. These include exchange rates, inflation and employment figures.
Many have tried. At one stage, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe tried to outlaw inflation. You might as well order the sun not to come up. Think of Danish and English King Canute, who 1 000 years ago tried to demonstrate the limits of his powers to his courtiers by sitting on the beach and ordering back the tide – obviously to no avail.
Reality is a tough taskmaster
It is a lesson our president should learn: there are things over which you have no control, however many friends you have in key positions. Reality is a tough taskmaster and it’s always lurking out there, regardless of how many yes men you surround yourself with. In the words of the song, “You can run, but you can’t hide”.
I must say that every time I think I have now seen everything this country has to offer, I am so wrong. Think of the fake interpreter at Mandela’s funeral; that was just so left field. And now this debacle.
Few countries can say that they have had three ministers of finance in five days. It’s a game of musical chairs that’s enough to make my head spin, a real rollercoaster. And it was a source of mirth to the BBC news readers and commentators on the 7am news bulletin this morning.
At least that is one thing growing up in this country has prepared me for – dealing with being a laughing stock to the rest of the world. And over the last 70 years we have had much to be embarrassed about; at least I was spared the first few decades of it.
But the ANC government is now making up for lost time.
There is one thing that puzzles me: judging by the track record of President Zuma, he is not one to listen to advisers - he seems impervious to embarrassment, and he seems to feel nothing when being accused of treating the state coffers as his own wallet. In short, he has been completely unspoiled by failure.
So what on earth could the upper echelons of the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP have said or done to make him change his mind? That in itself is to me the most telling aspect of this whole debacle – that for the first time they have forced him to backtrack on a decision. Any decision. And suddenly everyone can see that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.
A week is indeed a long time in politics.
* Susan Erasmus is a freelance writer. Opinions expressed are her own.
