‘Over-optimistic Godongwana must step aside’

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. Picture: X/@GovernmentZA Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and National Treasury had been over-optimistic about the economy for a long time but their forecast for the economy had been off the mark all along for years, says economist Duma Gqubule. He said the economy stagnated because there was no spending power and Treasury has not used the budget to create jobs.

Gqubule called on Godongwana to step aside to allow for someone else to be appointed to do the job, grow the economy and intervene to ensure jobs are created. Gqubule, who is founder of the Centre for Economic Development and Transformation, said the country experienced two decades of economic decline with average GDP growth of 1.2% between 2009 and 2025, with lower GDP per capita, while the unemployment rate remained the second highest in the world. There was nothing truly transformative in Godongwana’s speech and it had “lots of details about nothing”.

Gqubule was participating in a panel discussion with Xhanti Payi, an economist and director of Inani Strategies in a post-budget webinar hosted by the North-West University Business School under its Pitso programme. “I see nothing positive in this budget,” Gqubule said. He criticised Treasury’s statement that the country had turned the corner – when growth would be 1.6% per year – saying Treasury had exaggerated when it initially put the growth at 1.9% for last year, which was impossible in the current economic climate.

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“As you all know, the Treasury forecasts are wrong every single year for the past 15 years. They are over-optimistic,” Gqubule said. Despite the fact Operation Vulindlela, touted as a winning formula, had been in existence since October 2020, South Africa experienced two consecutive years of declining investment at 3.9% in 2024, and 2% last year. Citing a research report by Equal Education, Gqubule lambasted the government for canning the basic education employment initiative that was the largest presidential job creation project and unemployment-combating initiative.

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