Zuma’s removal no panacea to our woes

THESE national moments of anxiety are coming on a bit too frequently of late. This past Friday was merely a replay of many before.

Our path, in recent times at least, seems to be littered with many a crossroad, relating either to the economy or the politics of the land.

Sigmund Freud thought anxiety had connections with birth, its function being to warn of imminent danger or a threat to the equilibrium.

Fitting in our context: all the noise has us questioning where we are headed, given that our birth is as recent as a few decades ago, a brief period in the life of any nation.

We are stuck in something reminiscent of yet another neurotic and navel-gazing yarn from Woody Allen. It’s exhausting, really, but one can’t deny that it is an interesting ride. Our national share price, the rand, is as moody as the lead characters in any one of that director’s films.

Its almost 40% depreciation over two years is a reflection of both a global fall-off in the emerging-market promise and our falling confidence.

But we need to shake off this lethargy if we are to use Friday’s escape from a junk rating to our long-term benefit.

It starts with being honest with ourselves. So here’s my attempt to stop our national affliction of navel-gazing and halt this descent in the national psyche about our long-term prospects that has populist policies spewing from every nook and cranny. Even Solidarity, that bastion for “transformation”, has found its voice.

Let’s try to paint a bigger picture of just where we are.

While the turn in our fortunes does make fertile ground for political parties to wage their battles, especially in the lead-up to polls in a couple of months, let’s not get lost in the noise.

This is a rapidly changing economy and one that poses questions that many in our political and corporate classes don’t want to face up to, or find too discomforting. Its continued modernisation will come with many corpses, and not only in mining, which, perhaps more than any other industry, has borne the brunt of the carnage.

The main topic when I spoke with a senior banking executive this week was the increasing impact of technology on his business. It’s technology that is directly competing with warm bodies, the more than 100 000 employees who work for the big four banks.

Across sectors, either through technological advancements or quarterly pressures on profits of the listed majors, efficiencies are being pushed to new levels. Not much of the growth that is being seen by corporate South Africa has to do with actual growth; rather, it comes from a focus on costs by MBA types (with apologies to a few friends).

The losers in most cases are the workers. This is not merely a problem for unskilled workers. And in fact some miners may find more job security in the state of a reef that makes

In a developing economy, we should rein in the powers of our future No1s

mechanisation nearly impossible.

Further complicating the story is that the education system is not necessarily developing the skills that our ever-evolving economy needs. Blue-collar workers are now a rarity, and there’s increasing global competition for them.

These are the structural reforms that we need to focus on. The positive outcomes may not be immediate, but they’ll serve to ease the anxieties of this young nation.

What I’ve learnt from the incumbent’s presidency is that in a developing and everevolving economy, we should rein in the powers of our future No1s.

President Jacob Zuma’s removal is in no way a panacea for our ills — an unpopular and unfortunate truth.