The biscuits.

They were laid out on sad, institutional crockery, awaiting the hungry fingers of the media, which has been reduced over the past week to a sort of feral sugar-addicted horde. They were unexpected, the biscuits, because the Old Reserve Bank building on Church Square in Pretoria has shed quite a bit of liquidity over the past 24 hours. Billions been wiped off the national balance sheet, due to a very inevitable ratings downgrade courtesy of Standard & Poor’s, shortly to be followed by their compatriots at Moody’s, and then Fitch, and then, well, the Void.

It’s fine to think of the ratings agencies as basically Western neo-imperialism’s leather-clad, whip-wielding dominatrixes, because that’s exactly what they are. Punishment of the beta is their thing. Hyper-corrupt America, governed by a syphilitic alt-right news shyster and the president’s room temperature son-in-law, is investment grade. And beautiful Mzansi, roamed by the Big Five, is junk? But one can’t accuse the agencies of hiding their intentions, and nor are they coy. If one hopes to benefit from being plugged into the global monetary system – and let’s be frank, many ANC cadres have benefitted from it beyond their wildest imaginations – then the rules are pretty much written in stone:

Fire two competent apparatchiks and one complete idiot from the finance ministry in 15 months, and we’ll downgrade you to junk.

And so, those biscuits – the sacramental bread of austerity. Hungrily were they consumed, because the media briefing was by that time two-and-a-half hours behind schedule. This was probably because the former finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, was willing to spare more than a few minutes of his time in order to educate the current finance minister, Malusi Gigaba, on the complex workings of the government’s most technocratically intricate department.

The press conference was advertised as a double bill – call it “Gordhaba”. And yet, by the time we were finally called into the conference room, there was no Gordhan. Just Gigaba. Oh, and his deputy Sfiso Buthelezi, and Director-General of the Treasury, Lungisa Fuzile (who would later in the day resign, and then un-resign).

I have no idea what Gordhan said to Gigaba over the course of their meeting, but this was not the Malusi we know. He looked as if he’d just received the diagnosis for an exotic disease that can only be contracted on Instagram. He appeared terrified. Legend has it that every US president has been handed the Roswell files upon assuming office, and then puked in a bucket for two hours. The aliens are here. The world is a software programme. Nothing is real.

The magnitude of the task had finally, it seemed, penetrated the steel-plated embankments of Gigaba’s ego.

Weirdly, this was not reassuring.

Over the weekend, he confidently told us that, “There’s so much going on in our country that changing a certain individual won’t cause a credit downgrade.” And yet, the key revelation of this latest presser was that, when he uttered those words, he had already been informed of the fact that S&P would roast the country’s investment rating. (He couldn’t spill the beans, because the imperialist storm troopers had taken him into their confidence, and it would be shitty to betray their trust. This is, by the way, almost exactly what he said.)

They had made the decision, the DG would later add, directly after the Cabinet shuffle, either late last Thursday night or early Friday morning. In other words, Jacob Zuma’s axing of Gordhan was the immediate catalyst. Gigaba was, however, correct in saying that Gordhan’s removal wasn’t the only reason that S&P came to their decision – there are so many landmines in the South African economy that institutional stability was the only thing warding off a downgrade.

“Government’s overall policy orientation remains the same,” Gigaba promised. But that’s not exactly what he said at Saturday’s press conference, when he was chatting confidently about radical economic transformation and black business development, as if fancy rhetoric magically turns into policy. It’s interesting that Gigaba was willing to say those things knowing that the S&P downgrade was a thing, but three days later, he was taking a more Gordhan-ian, Nene-ian, Manuel-ian line.

He saw the books, I scheme, and they were the Revelation.

“We acknowledge that yesterday’s developments were a setback,” admitted Gigaba, sadly. He spoke in generalities about the generalities, and took the sober approach, while seeming completely out of his depth. The Gordhan meeting was delayed, he told us, because of administrative snafus. “They have offered us their full assistance and co-operation,” he swore.

He said that the state was hoping to stop using small black-owned businesses as “cashflow management” – by which he meant, not paying them. He promised that the corporate governance in state-owned companies was a top priority.

Would he purge the old crew? “Staff in the ministry have no impact on policy. Worry about me, and not my parliamentary liaison officer. And I think I have on three occasions spoken of how I intend to sustain [the ship].” He was also going to call the old rich white guys who apparently run business in this country, along with organised labour, and discuss “how we move forward”. He would not say who his advisers were, but we know that Denel board member Thamsanqa Msomi is now helping out, as is legal wonk Kholeka Gcaleka, who has her own colourfully chequered career.

“Don’t doubt our capability. Don’t doubt it,” said the boss.

Oh, give Gigaba a break. This wasn’t his doing. No one knows if he even lobbied for this stupid position. I’m almost certain — but I’m by no means certain certain — that the Guptas did not have the courtesy to inform him that he’d be offered the job. He’s just a man slathered in lube forced to naked wrestle a T-Rex, while juggling chainsaws. The more he blathered on, the more the gravity of the situation sunk in, and the more afraid he appeared.

His own boss has committed an economic crime that will take years to properly account for, but the single act of firing Gordhan will likely end up costing the country hundreds of billions, and yet, someone has made billions by magically anticipating the mood swings of the president, and shorting this country into the toilet.

Gigaba, it seemed, was finally understanding what this meant, and how deep the hole was, and how impossible it is to dig out from it. Fair? What is fair? Avoidable? Entirely.

Nonetheless, Gigaba wanted us to be hopeful.

“South Africa is a robust democracy,” the minister kept saying. But he’s wrong. It’s a fake democracy, in which opinions and discourse have been monetised, and outsourced to public companies in Silicon Valley.

They’re all rated AAA. We’re junk. Go figure. DM

Photo: South Africa’s Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba addresses a news conference in Pretoria, South Africa April 4, 2017. REUTERS/James Oatway.