Problem? What problem? Just drink the Kool-Aid
So what are we, actually? Boiling frogs slowly cooked by the contrived tales of those who are supposed to run the country on our behalf? First it was the catastrophe at Eskom, with its costly disruption of personal lives and the economy. Now it’s a water problem that, incomprehensibly, has been allowed to reach crisis point.
The two crises may be dissimilar in substance but they have one crucial commonality. Neither came upon us without warning, like an act of God. Both the power constraints and water shortages have taken years to come to a head, in which time we would have reasonably expected interventions to avert calamity.
In the case of electricity, it is a matter of record that the authorities ignored advice in the late 1990s to build new power stations, as existing ones were coming to the end of their working lives. In addition, despite the power cuts having begun in 2008, there was a spectacular failure to act to prevent the dire circumstances we find ourselves in today.
The situation is no different in the case of water provision, where the need to cater for increased demand was eminently foreseeable.
At the same time the excuses for failure and dereliction have been as long as your arm. They range from an increased population to crookery and state capture. Extending, in the case of water, to public overconsumption and high summer temperatures — or delays in fully commissioning the Lesotho Highlands project (this without a clear explanation of what or who caused the holdup).
As citizens, our response to the crises has been the same. Our initial alarm and outrage soon enough turn into grudging acceptance. Regarding power, those with the means explore ways around the problem, via generators and solar solutions (as they have done when faced with ineffectual policing or a failing public health system).
Otherwise we look to the trusted load-shedding schedule, a sort of bible of our lives, to tell us when businesses may trade and when not, or when households may undertake even the most basic chores such as cooking dinner.
The decay and dysfunctionality spread insidiously, to eventually envelop the rest of society. Think about it. Some time ago water problems were alien to most urban South Africans. They affected in the main rural and poorer parts of the country, where people were even forced to share water sources with animals.
As events in many parts of the country, including the economic hub of Gauteng, have shown, the crisis has now come to the doorsteps of even the well-to-do. With an increasingly erratic water supply, even pristine neighbourhoods will soon be marred by telltale JoJo tanks on roofs.
And so, these days you are either without electricity or without water. Increasingly, you may be bereft of both at the same time. The abnormal becomes the normal.
Equally concerning is the revelation by the National Planning Commission that the targets we set ourselves in the National Development Plan, including economic growth and reducing unemployment, are, to all intents and purposes, out of reach and unlikely to be met by 2030 (a short seven years away) as envisaged. No talk of holding anyone accountable here. Just as no-one has been brought to book for the abandoned public works projects around the country, from Hammanskraal to Giyani.
As with much that goes wrong in our country, we fudge and mystify responsibility.
For our part, as citizens, we seem quite content to drink the political Kool-Aid of justification and explanation, of how things are not as bad as we think, and how, against all evidence, they will soon get better.
In the context, it is not out of place to ask questions of those charged with leading the country and ensuring its smooth running. Also, what happens to them when they fail in their duties?
Apparently, President Cyril Ramaphosa has undertaken a performance assessment of his cabinet. Were they to be made public, the outcomes, including what action he took against non-performing ministers, would be revealing — especially given the myriad acute problems faced by the country today. Given that no minister that we know of has ever been fired for nonperformance, we might think that all cabinet members have been shooting the lights out in the responsibilities they have been given. If we didn’t know better.
In the spirit of transparency, Ramaphosa should perhaps take the nation into his confidence about what he thinks of his ministers’ performance. It might help put paid to the perception that he and the ruling party are averse to walking the talk when it comes to the so-called “consequence management” they often refer to.
Not long ago, a British prime minister came into office and dreamt up a seemingly popular tax-cutting budget. It thoroughly displeased the financial markets, which saw it as hare-brained adventurism, and spooked her political party. Liz Truss did not last two months in office, turfed out not by the electorate but by the party she led.
Indeed, it is true that South Africa is not the UK, and the ANC, which despite the country’s declining fortunes has clung to the anachronism of “collective responsibility”, is not the Conservative Party.
Yet the fundamental principles of leadership accountability and of running a modern economy, such as ensuring reliable electricity and water supply, are the same. We can ignore them only if we want to be consigned to the backwaters of development while much of the world marches forward.
If leaders and officials are not held to account and there are no consequences for incompetence or errant conduct, what incentive is there for them to seek to excel at the responsibilities they have been given?
To raise these issues may be deemed unpatriotic in some quarters. What’s unpatriotic is to willingly imbibe Kool-Aid from politicians or government mandarins.
MIKE SILUMA
As with much that goes wrong in our country, we fudge and mystify responsibility