South Africa is an overtaxed and uncompetitive country that is inching closer to junk status, according to chairman of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) Wayne Duvenage.
He was responding to President Jacob Zuma’s televised address following the constitutional court ruling that he, the president, violated the constitution and that national treasury must determine how much he should pay for the upgrades at his Nkandla mansion.
Zuma told the nation on Friday evening that he welcomed the judgment, adding that he respects the court’s ruling and will abide by it.
“It was never my intention not to abide by the public protector’s remedial action.”
He said the judgment has strengthened the countries constitutional democracy.
However, Outa believes Zuma’s apology is an insult to the South African people.
“A simple apology is all we received from the head of state, along with a feeble excuse of misunderstandings and misguidedness, with a promise of new focus on policy revision related to state expenditure,” said Duvenage.
Outa noted with increasing concern, the exorbitant and increasing costs associated with many large capital expenditure project throughout most state owned entities in South Africa.
“We believe this situation has arisen as a result of cronyism that gives rise to connected appointments and entities whose main purpose is to extract money out of the system.
“The focus of placing his party and friends before the interests of the nation, has reduced our state owned entities to heightened levels of inefficiency and poorly managed state resources which do not produce the best results at lowest cost for the people of South Africa.”
Duvenage added: “We have become an overtaxed and uncompetitive nation and our President, along with the ruling party appear unable to focus their attention on the dire needs and work required to extricate us from our slide into junk status.
“It is unfortunate that on many occasions, when the door has been opened to pave the way to recall Zuma, the ANC’s top brass slams it shut every time.”
He pointed out that Zuma’s response and that of the ANC has lost an opportunity to for significant change and will further alienate South Africa from the international investment community.
