Economic development minister Ebrahim Patel clearly got tired of waiting for President Jacob Zuma to provide clarity on the roles of his economic ministers and has drawn up his own mandate.
In discussions among themselves, the economic ministers had agreed on which functions of the department of trade & industry would be hived off to Patel. These included oversight of the Industrial Development Corp (IDC), Khula Enterprise Finance, the SA Micro Finance Apex Fund, the competition commission and tribunal and the International Trade Administration Commission.
These are significant institutions with the prize being the IDC, the state-owned financing corporation with a handsome balance sheet of R80bn.
But the ministers were unable to agree on the delineation of other functions, in particular the formulation of economic policy, which is germane to the role of the national treasury.
Zuma had been promising since June last year to make a pronouncement on this, but no decision emerged from the presidency.
Now Patel, who tabled his strategic plan to the parliamentary portfolio committee last Friday, has drawn up a mandate so broad that it "cuts across" almost all departments in government and overlaps significantly with the work of some.
Among the most glaring overlaps are Patel's plans to:
- "Evaluate macro and microeconomic policy tools... and improve their alignment" and do economic modelling - already a core function of the national treasury. Patel says his department will conduct research and host discussion on policy, such as the exchange rate, and "the insights and propositions that flow from that discussion would be available to government";
- "Draw together leading economic researchers and development practitioners... to produce research and policy papers" - the raison d'≖tre for the newly established national planning commission (NPC);
- "Focus on co-ordinating economic plans including spatial plans" - another core function of the NPC; and
- Perform a range of functions with regard to social partnerships, most of them already the role and function of the National Economic Development & Labour Council (Nedlac).
Patel insists that the overlapping is a benefit, not a problem. " You can't achieve what you need to in government if you have a series of parallel activities talking to the same outcome.
"Economic development is an outcome of many different activities. If they are not co-ordinated, you don't achieve anything. Just like in a soccer match, there must be fluidity."
But to succeed in marshalling the team, Patel will have to pull rank on his cabinet colleagues, or at least have the strong and explicit backing of Zuma. Several insiders in the cabinet and government officials are doubtful about his ability to do so.
"All that is going to happen is that he is going to fight with every minister. He has defined himself in a supervisory role over his colleagues. This is the type of work that can only be done by the presidency," says one.
And, points out another, since Zuma's presidency is lacking in coherence and strength, even if Zuma were to support Patel completely - and given the pressure he is facing from centrist ANC leaders this is hardly likely - he will find it difficult to unite the cabinet around Patel's agenda.
However, Patel has a trump card to play. According to his strategic plan, he is to take responsibility for developing "a new growth path" for the economy, a function which fellow cabinet ministers and the ANC's economic transformation committee acknowledge to be rightly his.
Patel's department envisages that the new growth path document, which will be presented to cabinet for consultation in June before it is made public, will become the new economic bible, dramatically shaping SA's economic policy into the future.
Getting the resources to fund this plan - using retirement savings as a lever - is the first phase.
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