[Debate] ANC warns West SA has other friends to count on

[Riaz K Tayob]

[Freedom to talk until the loan repayments kick in hard for the WB deal...]

ANC warns West SA has other friends to count on
22 May 2012 19:51 - Reuters

The West must realise South Africa does not need its money since it can 
turn to India and China to fund its economic development, says Gwede 
Mantashe.
“There is a dynamic that Western investors must wake up to,” the ANC’s 
secretary general Mantashe told Reuters in an interview.

“If they are still sulking regularly, there is a growing ‘look East’ 
tendency that is emerging throughout the continent, the developing world.”

The left-leaning ANC is deeply suspicious of the West, resenting what it 
sees as high-handedness by the United States and Africa’s former 
European colonial powers and distrusting free market capitalism.

It also objects to conditions often imposed by western institutions as 
the price of their investment.

“Sometimes, when you deal with the IMF or World Bank, or anything, they 
feel that you must stop thinking because they have money and they will 
tell you what to do with the money,” Mantashe, a former union leader, said.

“As long as that is the case, you are going to see the fast growth of 
the ‘look East’ policy,” he said.

China provides investment with far fewer strings attached, while its 
approach is perceived as more tactful. As a result it has become South 
Africa’s biggest trading partner.

<strong>Exports</strong>
Last year South Africa exported goods worth R90.2-billion to China, more 
than twice exports to Germany and about eight times more than those to 
Britain.
Our Coverage

Industrial Development Corporation wins Patel's ear

More Coverage

Motlanthe laments pace of infrastructure development
Manuel: Development the only way to ensure peace

South Africa’s trade deficit with China was about $3-billion.

South Africa joined the Brics group of emerging economic powers Brazil, 
Russia, India and China in early 2011, and has made clear its desire to 
emulate the Chinese and Brazilian models of state intervention in the 
economy.

Mantashe and other top ANC officials have taken several trips to China 
to see how it uses state-owned industry to power its economy.

“The Brics development bank is going to be a reality and that is where 
we look for money and funding because developing economies must be 
allowed to grow and develop,” he said.

Meanwhile the ANC has shown its distrust for Western firms, for example 
by trying, unsuccessfully, to roll back approval for Wal-Mart’s 
$2.4-billion acquisition of retailer Massmart.

<strong>‘A mouse from the bush’</strong>
Mantashe also admitted the ANC, which has ruled Africa’s biggest economy 
since the end of apartheid in 1994, was in a mess. But he said it was 
cleaning up the in-fighting and corruption scandals that have eroded its 
authority.

Mantashe said part of the problem lay in the deployment of inexperienced 
ANC cadres to bureaucratic posts commanding huge and complex budgets.

“It is like taking a mouse from the bush and making it run a cheese 
factory,” he said.

“The mess we are dealing with now grew up over a long period of time,” 
he said. “We are mopping up. Once we are able to mop up the mess, it 
means we are not dysfunctional.”

All three major global ratings agencies have downgraded their outlook 
for South Africa, saying President Jacob Zuma’s government is on the 
wrong track, with graft, a wide budget deficit and a poor education 
system clouding the future.

Zuma’s government has made progress in building houses and providing 
running water, power and health care but it also faces hundreds of 
protests each year from people saying more must be done and accusing 
local officials of lining their pockets.

“You are not ... entitled to have your hand in the till. You are 
entitled to a salary. Everything else does not belong to you,” Mantashe 
said. &ndash; Reuters