Zuma's spending cuts are ‘small’, says Maimane

Belt-tightening measures announced by President Jacob Zuma in his state of the nation address were insignificant, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane said on Thursday.

“He wasn’t bold enough. When he spoke of budget cuts, he was speaking of cutting food and travel. Those are small,” said Maimane outside Parliament in reaction to Zuma’s speech.

“He should have announced the privatisation of South African Airways and the selling of some of some state assets so that we can recoup capital to finance development objectives. He should have made sure that he cuts his cabinet by half so that we can release some of the money towards higher education and learning. Those would have been bold.”

Maimane said Zuma was repeating the same policies but hoping to get different outcomes. He said Zuma’s court battles had proven that he could no longer lead the nation.

“There can be no debate about the fact that the president is a compromised man. He has proven it in the Constitutional Court and that point will be argued strongly next week. We are in a deep crisis and I don’t think he has capacity to be able to address that,” said Maimane.

“He should have been more contrite tonight to the people of South Africa. He hasn’t apologised about Nkandla. He didn’t table anything serious about corruption. He didn’t speak about basic education – the fact that we are having a decline in education. He should have inspired confidence by being contrite.”

In his State of the Nation speech on Thursday evening, Zuma declared war on over-spending by public servants.

He announced a number of belt-tightening initiatives, taking particular aim at a variety of items, such as state-funded banquets and international travel junkets.

It seems there will be no more bloated South African delegations on less-than-vital international trips. As of now, Zuma said, travel requests would need to be motivated properly and submissions would be interrogated fully.

He also promised that luxurious catering for all at state-funded events would be a thing of the past.

(File photo: Gallo Images)