ANC’s manifesto is more a compromise than long-term plan

It s hard to say which is the most ridiculous commitment in the ANC s manifesto. Is it the suggestion to establish a state pharmaceutical company, convert community health workers into employees of the department of health, investigate the return of prescribed assets for pension funds or the undertaking to lower administered prices just as Eskom’s death spiral accelerates?

Each is as pie in the sky as the others. All are impossible when subjected to a reality check, and many are recycled ideas that have never been implemented before because they can’t be.

But before one gets too frustrated, it is a good idea to remember that the ANC’s election manifesto is not actually a carefully thoughtout plan for the next five years, or even a promise of what that party will do if re-elected. It is a negotiated settlement among the ANC’s various parts; an effort to include the demands of all interest groups, regardless of the likelihood of realisation.

The primary source of the content and wording of the manifesto is past ANC conference resolutions. As we know, the most recent ANC conference was disastrous on this front, with commitments to fund fee-free higher education and expropriation of land without compensation as fists flew on the floor.

The second source is ANC allies Cosatu and the SA Communist Party, which despite their diminishing influence have secured the inclusion of a long list of demands in the manifesto.

Others come from “the manifesto process a series of meetings with interest groups convened by ANC elections co-ordinator Fikile Mbalula, in which a motley crew of individuals with vested interests were consulted.

While it costs the ANC little to include the demands of these groups and then do little about them, getting a mention in the manifesto counts for a lot among all these stakeholders, as it is one more hurdle jumped in the ongoing game to influence the ANC.

Established business, on the other hand, the most important driver of job creation, did not get much of a look-in and its needs hardly appear in the manifesto other than as a number: the R1.2trillion in private investment that Cyril Ramaphosa claims to have mobilised through the investment summit.

In the face of the impossibilities of the manifesto, hard realities loom. Six weeks from now, finance minister Tito Mboweni must present his budget under the most difficult set of fiscal circumstances since 1994.

Lower-than-anticipated revenue and rand depreciation have caused the budget deficit to blow out much further than expected and also made the debt-toGDP ratio higher.

As Mboweni gets back to work, Eskom will be standing at the door with its begging bowl. The R100bn Jabu Mabuza told investors the company needs in debt relief is not yet factored into the budget. But it or an even larger amount will need to be found if disaster for SA is to be averted. The company stands at the brink; it is too big to fail.

Several other state-owned companies also require bailouts if they are to be kept. Municipalities are in deep and growing trouble, and provincial health departments so constrained that the health professionals who have been trained cannot be placed in jobs this year and probably not the next.

ESTABLISHED BUSINESS, ON THE OTHER HAND, THE MOST IMPORTANT DRIVER OF JOB CREATION, DID NOT GET MUCH OF A LOOK-IN

There’s little doubt that the ANC is heading for a healthy election victory. It is already on 60%, says Ipsos or 59%, says the Institute of Race Relations and experience tells us that as it mounts its big and loud campaign support tracks upwards.

So if the manifesto is not the ANC’s plan for the next five years, what is? The answer is that there isn’t one.

The myriad policy documents, conference resolutions, lekgotla sessions and strategic discussions produce plans similar in nature to the manifesto: something for everybody and long unfocused strings of priorities, often lifted from government documents.

Problems, or challenges as they are often called, are seldom confronted, especially where politically difficult. Instead they are left to fester and, hopefully, go away.

There is little to indicate Ramaphosa will be able to use his new mandate to break free of the constraints of the ANC, which require keeping the peace and balancing often unhealthy vested interests against what is required for growth and prosperity.

The plan is not so much to govern as to stay in power.