Mashaba urges Mboweni ‘to save country’

The People’s Dialogue leader Herman Mashaba urged the minister of finance Tito Mboweni to “do what needed to be done to save the country” amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mashaba’s comment comes after he wrote an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa on his view about the current lockdown of the country and the economic consequences ahead.

The former mayor of Johannesburg said Mboweni needed to “put aside the voices of lunacy in the cabinet” to deal with the country’s economy.

“Put aside the voices of lunacy in cabinet, finance minister, and do what needs to be done to save our country. As I told President Ramaphosa, now is the time to do what is right for South Africa. To hell with the ANC political consequences,” he said on his Twitter account.

Put aside the voices of lunacy in cabinet, Finance Minister, and do what needs to be done to save our country.

As I told President Ramaphosa, now is the time to do what is right for 🇿🇦 SOUTH AFRICA. To hell with the ANC political consequences.

— Herman Mashaba (@HermanMashaba) May 6, 2020

Mashaba has been echoing the concerns of actuaries who said that an extended, highly restrictive lockdown would ultimately cause far more harm than the virus could on its own.

While complimenting Ramaphosa’s leadership in general, he was scathing of government in general, and called for the relaxation of restrictions on business, with the focus shifting to trying to allow as many businesses as possible to operate, rather than as few, and to only close businesses if they were being non-compliant with strong preventative and detection measures.

He slammed Ramaphosa’s cabinet as made up of “geriatrics” who had “learnt their economics in the Soviet Union” and further said they were guilty of “arbitrary and irrational decision making”.

Mboweni also raised his concern about the lockdown as he was criticised on social media following an apparent Twitter meltdown in which he complained about having to obey “collective decisions”.

The finance minister said he had been a free man before accepting the finance minister job, and now political constraints forced him to obey decisions made by the majority despite his disapproval.

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