Cyril’s promises mere platitudes
Symbolic acts of leadership are meaningless if our weak state institutions cannot address corruption
Politicians make promises on the campaign trail with the hope that these will entice the electorate to give them the mandate to govern. But even after his election, Cyril Ramaphosa has continued to make promises as though he were still campaigning to be president of the republic.
In late 2020, he promised to create 800 000 jobs through his economic reconstruction and recovery plan for South Africa. In May this year, he promised to strengthen the country’s response to climate change and disaster response. Earlier this month he promised to allocate more resources to policing, and just last week he promised that government would build houses for residents whose homes were damaged in the Jagersfontein dam collapse. It appears every time the president steps onto a podium, he makes a promise. But rarely does he stand on a podium to provide a progress report on one of his previous promises.
Since his presidency began in 2018, Ramaphosa has met each crisis with platitudes rather than action. He has relied on superficial responses, such as cutting his overseas trips short, rather than more impactful responses, like shuffling his cabinet and pushing for the full implementation of his economic recovery plan.
In July he promised to pursue responses to the energy crisis — this was not the first time he was making this promise. According to the Eskomsepush app, the country has lost an estimated 70 days or more than 1700 hours in national loadshedding. In this latest round of load-shedding, the president has decided to fly home after Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, instead of heading to address the United Nations General Assembly.
He comes home to “deal with the energy crisis”, but it is quite unclear what his presence will achieve this time which it couldn’t achieve the last time he cut an international trip short because of the energy crisis.
As journalist Samkelo Maseko pointed out, in 2019 the president also cut short a trip to deal with another period of persistent and lengthy load-shedding.
Ramaphosa took on the role of president, aware of the institutions built and also damaged by his predecessor. Had he paid some attention to the happenings in the presidency over the past 25 years, he would have known of the significant institutional changes made by each president to shape policy institutions to help them come to grips with the policy landscape and to further their specific agendas.
In the late 1990s, the offices of the president and the deputy president were merged into one structure called the presidency, to provide “efficient and effective executive management of government by the president together with the deputy president and cabinet for accelerated delivery of quality services and speedy transformation of the public service and all institutions of governance.”
This structural change gave the administration an opportunity to reassess the suitability of every employee through interviews and additional assessments.
Through this process, the policy coordination and advisory services unit (PCAS) was created to advise the political principals within the presidency on all issues related to the ideation, development and implementation of public policy in the country. Headed by the highly respected Joel Netshitenzhe, the unit enabled the president to fulfil at least two of his roles: developing and implementing national policy and coordinating the functions of state departments and administrations.
The proximity of the policy coordination and advisory services unit to the president gave the very competent policy experts a high degree of authority but it also created resentment within the state.
The PCAS unit as an institution was singled out as part of the policy failures identified in the lead-up to the Polokwane conference where Thabo Mbeki was ousted as president of the ANC.
When Jacob Zuma ascended to the presidency of the ANC — with then ally Kgalema Motlanthe as deputy president — he focused on solidifying his political power within the party. The PCAS unit was dismantled, and a planning unit was carved out of it, mainly to help draft the National Development Plan. A department of performance, monitoring and evaluation was created in the presidency.
It appears Zuma was aware that, without consolidating political power, he would be unable to implement his destructive political agenda through the presidency.
Ramaphosa neglected this exercise, choosing to play the role of unifier, as though the differences within the ANC were only a matter of preference, and not rooted in access to patronage networks.
To quote Netshitenzhe, “The beneficiaries of corruption and state capture will not give up without a fight”. Yet, the president chose complacency, treating corruption as a cancer that could be willed away through unity.
Ramaphosa did not stop to ask himself about the institutional support he would need to be significantly more impactful in driving an agenda of reform in the public sector. So what remains four years into his presidency are still weak institutions thar are unable to respond to the persistent problem of deeply entrenched interests that have continued to perpetuate patronage politics in institutions critical to economic reform.
Now, having underinvested in institution-building, the president is heavily dependent on ministers who are more concerned with their own interest groups and less in the performance of the government.
By neglecting to strengthen the presidency’s advisory capabilities, outside of symbolic committees of part-time policy buffs, the president has left himself too reliant on others. Thabo Mbeki recently criticised Ramaphosa’s non-existent economic development plan, but such an exercise is futile in a toxic political economy.
South Africa has a political problem, and Cyril Ramaphosa is part of it. Until the political problem that is the ANC is resolved, no policy intervention will be a success. Whether it is Eskom or the destruction of our railway system, each problem entrenches a new patronage system that uses any means necessary to arrest the reversal of the problem.
The ANC has always spoken about corruption as a cancer that is killing the party. But the ANC is now the cancer that is killing this country, its potential and threatening its survival. The electorate is the only hope left for South Africa before there is nothing left to save.
He is coming home to ‘deal with the energy crisis’, but it is unclear what his presence will achieve this time which it couldn’t the last time
Zama Ndlovu is a columnist and author of
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the