South African Leaders Trade Insults Over Harvard’s Economic Advice

(Bloomberg) -- Seeking advice from Harvard University academics on how to boost a struggling economy would be seen as an astute move in most quarters, given the lauded institution’s depth of expertise. South Africa’s third-largest political party has other ideas.

Harvard professors Ricardo Hausmann, Robert Lawrence and Dani Rodrik were among more than 50 experts who contributed to a plan published by South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni in August that aims at pulling the continent’s most-industrialized economy out of its longest downward cycle since 1945. It envisions the state relinquishing its near monopoly of electricity, port and rail services, relaxing rules to make it easier to do business and privatizing assets to stabilize its finances.

The Economic Freedom Fighters, a populist group that split from the ruling party in 2013 and draws most of its support from disaffected youths with its fiery talk of nationalizing everything from land to banks, questioned the academics’ contribution and motives.

Floyd Shivambu, the EFF’s deputy leader, told Parliament on Wednesday that Harvard gets funding from institutions that stand to benefit from the government’s plans to break up the state power utility, and its staff couldn’t be trusted to provide impartial, expert advice.

“Aren’t you being a puppet of the capitalist establishment that is imposing its views through so-called intellectualism?” he asked. “There is nothing intellectual about the perspective -- it’s just new-liberal drivel.”

Mboweni laughed off the criticism.

“If you want your ideological position to govern, you first have to win elections,” the finance minister told Shivambu. “You are hung up about Harvard because of your intellectual inferiority.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ana Monteiro in Johannesburg at amonteiro4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Mike Cohen

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