If there were but one lesson to draw from the 2025 Budget, it must be that inadequate consultation seriously reduces the chances of navigating the new normal of coalition governance.

To their credit, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and his officials have acknowledged this reality, and have promised changes to avoid a repeat of the confidence-sapping multiple tablings, which were necessary before all the parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU) felt they could support the Budget.

Outside of the National Treasury, however, there are multiple instances of Ministers seeking to take unworkable shortcuts.

The most recent example was on high-profile display at the hastily convened Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies to interrogate a draft policy direction relating to the use of Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes (EEIPs) as a second avenue for licensed telecoms operators to meet their black-empowerment commitments.

Currently, such licensees need to prove that 30% of their equity is owned by historically disadvantaged individuals, despite their multinational counterparts in the information and communication technology sector, as well as various other industries, having made use of EEIPs for several years.

The meeting had all the characteristics of an Oval Office ambush, sans the dimmed lights and amateurish multimedia production. Yet the approach taken by Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi, as well as the timing of the intervention, proved almost as significant as the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant in setting the scene for an equally uncomfortable engagement.

As with President Cyril Ramaphosa, Malatsi did well to keep his cool while attempting to defend his decision to publish a draft direction on the EEIPs rather than tabling an amendment to the Electronic Communication Act itself. Likewise, he battled strenuously to decouple the direction from Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has refused to entertain the sale of equity to black entities, as well as to the overtures being made by South Africa in a bid to ‘reset’ its fraying relations with the mighty US.

Nevertheless, most of the committee members were unmoved and the likelihood of Malatsi being forced to adopt another course of action is now high.

He is not alone, however, in seeking to move forward without proper consultation both inside the GNU and with key stakeholders. The approach being taken by Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa with regard to the Integrated Resource Plan update is a case in point, while it was startling to see Minerals Council South Africa stating that it “cannot see where our inputs were taken into consideration” in relation to Minister Gwede Mantashe’s draft Mineral Resources Development Bill.

In some cases, the intention behind bypassing key political or civil society interlocutors is likely in response to a growing demand for action over words. Other cases are more curious, though. Could it be that the intention is to actively oppose the GNU from the inside as part of an attempt at a political realignment that has no relation to the 2024 election results?