Justice Malala Weighing in The country of lost opportunity
There should be a short, sharp, clear lecture on the concept of opportunity cost at the beginning of every ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting.
Perhaps it would help attendees realise just what spectacular harm the party’s nonsensical palace politics is doing to South Africa.
Last Friday the ANC went into a three-day NEC meeting. The entire time was spent discussing whether President Cyril Ramaphosa should step down because thieves walked into his farm nearly three years ago and stole foreign currency stuffed in his furniture.
At least six different state entities are investigating the matter. Not a single one has concluded its investigation.
Yet the entire weekend was spent on this issue simply because those accused of far worse want to get rid of Ramaphosa.
Think of the uncertainty unleashed by this manufactured scandal — and the possibility of a Ramaphosa departure — and what that does to the investment attractiveness of the country.
But who cares? Not the people in that NEC room this past weekend.
South Africa under the ANC has become a country of lost opportunity.
When businesses cannot predict for sure that a reconfigured ANC under a new leader will maintain a climate conducive to them growing their enterprises, they either take their money offshore or resort to a wait-andsee attitude.
Right now, with the noise that is spewing from the ANC around leadership and policy, I doubt that any serious business would make a bet on a future in South Africa.
The extremely brave will stick a toe in, for sure. But our needs as a country demand that we attract even the most sceptical.
Right now our very loud politics would make investors feel like they are joining the cast of Survivor.
We should know all this by now. Investors have been warning about corruption, political uncertainty, crime, labour regulation, migration policy, skills levels and other factors for years.
Being able to see these negatives is not rocket science. The Mbeki administration, despite its many faults, for many years largely managed to provide policy certainty.
Its vision was clear and its plans were solid. That is why it attracted investment.
Today’s ANC spews so many different messages it is unclear who is in charge and where it is headed.
This hydra should split. It is a messy, useless, coalition.
On the one hand you have the Ramaphosa ANC, which seems committed to some form of cleanup of corruption and some form of rules-based government, while on the other hand you have the horde of corruption-tainted, radical economic transformation types who seek chaos.
In the current ANC you have at the very top people who don’t believe in the country’s constitution.
Surely, anyone who says they don’t believe in the constitution — such as tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu — is saying they are not personally bound by the precepts of that constitution.
Why are they in the government then?
Then you have those who, in the same ANC, attack every attempt at fixing the institutions of accountability.
The way ANC leaders squeal as the National Prosecuting Authority,
the Asset Forfeiture Unit, the Special Investigating Unit, the Hawks and others begin to flex their muscles makes you realise that they want a very different country to the one the rest of us want.
Every feature of the ANC — sloth over action, chaos over order, corruption over clean government — has a profound impact on the country and its development.
NEC members may go home and feel happy about their meeting, but their dilly-dallying and failure to make tough decisions mean that problems such as unemployment, crime, poverty and the exodus of skills just worsen.
The cost of the ANC’S dysfunction is too high.
Even if you love the ANC from the depths of your heart for its admirable fight against apartheid, you have to realise that a vote for this party now perpetuates the suffering of South Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
The party’s selfish, navel-gazing decisions are so costly they pose a danger to the country itself.
The ANC needs to be voted out of power in 2024.