Capable leadership now key
AFTER a great state of the nation address with potentially good solutions for South Africa, the greatest contribution President Cyril Ramaphosa can make to progress in the country is to lead, nothing more, nothing less.
There has been enough national consensus about the problems confronting the country and what solutions are needed to address them for more than a decade at least.
There is the National Development Plan and the priorities are known.
They include improving education and healthcare, promoting rural development and land reform, creating decent work and fighting crime and corruption.
The president covered these in his speech.
Mineral beneficiation, boosting manufacturing, enhancing entrepreneurship and delivering enabling infrastructure have been on the agenda since the early 2000s.
What has been lacking is a strong ability to lead in synchrony the complex bureaucratic and private sector machinery necessary to achieve the national objectives.
The country sadly degenerated into the proverbial abyss in terms of the quality of leadership during the presidency of Jacob Zuma.
It changed from being an active campaigner for improved levels of leadership accountability on the continent through instruments like the African Peer Review Mechanism to one lacking key confidence-building indicators.
Institutions and constitutional structures almost got eroded under pressure from state captors.
Corrupt state-owned enterprises, ineffective law enforcement agencies and the lethargic prosecution authority were cases in point.
With the spate of legal battles the former president and his government lost, among others, there were strong signs of an abysmal state of affairs higher up in government.
Given the extent of the rot we witnessed, only competence and inspiration will suffice for Ramaphosa to rebuild the image of the country, and lead the process of sociopolitical and economic recovery.
The characters of organisations and institutions tend to mirror those of their leaders. Employees are likely to follow what they see.
Sometimes juniors get pressured through direct institutional mechanisms, formal or informal, to conform to the demands of leaders, whether or not they are right.
Refusing to succumb to the pressures comes with persecution and alienation.
Many suffered sustained pressure under Zuma’s kleptocratic state to do things they surely would regret because the alleged shadow government seemed firmly in control or they themselves were greedy.
In other instances, juniors end up mirroring the traits of their leaders merely because of the negative role-modelling by their leaders.
On the contrary, Ramaphosa is going to need to demonstrate to South Africans and the world that he is committed to building a capable state that will drive socioeconomic transformation and growth in the country.
A competent political leadership and efficient bureaucracy are key traits of the developmental state that the ANC aspires to build, as outlined in its resolutions since Polokwane.
To aid this process, a performance management framework for ministers and all politicians should form part of Ramaphosa’s toolkit and it must be implemented this time, unlike the one conceptualised and effectively abandoned during the Zuma presidency.
Monitoring and evaluation helps align strategic objectives with activities aimed at successful implementation.
As such, the basis to determine the level of performance of ministers should be based objectively on the framework.
Managing and rewarding performance effectively and fairly will drive the message to officials and politicians that merit alone, not political accommodation, will determine how long they stay in their positions.
The neopatrimonial tendency of allocating office by kinship, friendship or factional association is blatantly wrong and stifles progress.
There are long-standing issues in each national department from which to determine options to implement low-hanging fruits and set targets for immediate performance by the ministers.
Chief executives and board chairpersons of state-owned enterprises, premiers and mayors need to be summoned to the Presidency, and given tight short- and medium-term deliverables.
To improve his national visibility, the president might want to visit all nine provinces and meet the executive councils so as to be apprised of key plans and developments at those levels and so he can ensure accountability.
He does need mechanisms to influence the entire civil service initially even if the various spheres of government and departments run on their own.
Such a hands-on approach is needed as it will create the impression of a president who is paying crucial attention to detail.
There is a compelling case for nation-wide visibility beyond the platform of political party activities to build rapport with people on the ground.
The important work currently under way to clean up state-owned entities must continue.
The state plays a significant role in enabling the economy through its utility and logistics providers, among others.
While it cannot allow these to fail, it cannot justify keeping them on life support indefinitely through massive bailouts with no clear turn-around plans.
The president is going to need to be careful when selecting his cabinet.
A fresh start is needed with new capable leaders who have not been too embroiled in the recent crippling political fracas in the country.
The beauty about bringing in new people is that they will not be stuck on doing things the way they were done before.
But there are many who should be kept in cabinet, given their experience.
These initiatives, among others, will help not only inspire civil servants, politicians and private businesses and communities to strive for greater achievement, but will help achieve the “cadre of a special type” the ANC has aspired to have in theory while doing all it could to suppress in practise as it threatened the shadow government.
A performance management framework for ministers and all politicians should form part of Ramaphosa’s toolkit