Over all the fun I had in Cape Town, it was easy to forget that this was actually a work trip! Monday was the big day and I finally got to go Parliament. My job in Cape Town was to do the presentation, which the Minister of Finance would use when presenting the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) to Parliament. I was quite nervous because no one had actually told me what the presentation was supposed to look like, what it should cover and how long it should be. On top of that, I didn’t actually have access to the complete budget statement, which made it slightly difficult to base a presentation on it!
Not wanting to look dependent on my boss, I started to put some slides together and fortunately over time things got a bit clearer and the pieces came together quite nicely. My boss was really happy and impressed about the speed with which things were progressing … I guess fortune favours the bold :)
Half way through the morning the Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan came to welcome us all to Cape Town and thank us for all the hard work we had put into the budget process. It was really good to see the “Big Boss” in such an informal environment and not just when giving a speech to all of Treasury. Lesetja Kganyago, the Deputy Director General and number two in Treasury, also came to speak to us. He’s very different to the Minister and rather than a formal address, he pulled a few jokes, teased people and made us all feel more relaxed and comfortable! My boss introduced us and I shook his hand – yay! It sounds silly, but it really is a nice feeling to meet the people who all our work is for!
We spent our day working on the presentation, the speech and preparing answers to questions that Members of Parliament and journalists were likely to ask. There is a lot of confusion about the role of Treasury in formulating South Africa’s economic policy since a new Ministry for Economic Development has recently been created. So no one knows who is actually in charge of economic policy: The new Ministry, Treasury or the mystery number three - Trevor Manuel, our old Minister of Finance, who is now a Minister in the Presidency. Pravin told us politely yet and forcefully that we must not comment on these questions – our job was to provide “answers, hope and directions to ordinary people” by giving them reliable economic forecasts and not to foster speculations and create confusion about political issues.
On Tuesday all journalists received the final policy statement at 6am and were given the opportunity to ask questions in a “lock-up” prior to the official press conference. However, they were not allowed to release any information before the Minister had started his speech in Parliament later on that day. I know it’s silly, but I found it all really interesting – even little things like seeing how an embargo works in practice. Another thing I really enjoyed was meeting all the journalists whose articles and columns I use so much and be able to put faces to the names.
Our work in Cape Town was done when the press conference started and we could go, watch and enjoy the whole process. At the press conference it was really satisfying to hear the journalists ask many of the questions we had expected and briefed the Minister on. He dealt with them very well and kept the whole press conference rather informal and actually quite fun. For instance, when asked about whether he was still a member of the communist party, he searched his wallet for a membership card, then checked the colour of his socks, turned back to the journalist and told him that it didn’t look like it… 1:0 Pravin! At the end of the press conference he specifically thanked all the hard-working and loyal members of National Treasury, who had produced such excellent and high-quality work. It was really sweet and I genuinely appreciated his kind words.
At 2pm, the Minister of Finance stepped up to the speaker’s desk and presented our economic forecast, future tax projections and new policy initiatives to President Zuma, other Ministers, Members of Parliament and thousands of South Africans following his speech live on TV. While he is not as charismatic as Trevor Manuel (and how could he be after such short time in office), his speech was very good, well delivered and he managed to spice it up nicely. When talking about allocating more money to technological developments, ironically the teleprompter broke and he pointed out that clearly no-one could argue that this wasn’t money well spent.
Even though I enjoyed the speech, I was more interested in the Ministers and how things worked in Parliament. It’s interesting and amusing to see how different the Ministers are: some of them wear fancy Prada outfits, others traditional tribal dresses; some seem to be genuinely interested while others are on the brink of falling asleep…
The dynamics of Parliament were definitely fascinating and I think in the two days in Parliament, I learnt a lot about how Treasury works and feel oddly more committed to my work. Seeing how all the silly little things, the graphs and numbers and all the other seemingly meaningless work fits and links together and how it’s all piece of a bigger picture - it made me feel like my work has a point and a meaning and that is certainly a great feeling!!
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