President should maintain ‘family meetings’
IT SEEMS so long ago now, but I can remember how the state took us into its confidence in preparation for the war against the Covid-19 pandemic. It had to shut down almost the entire economy. This was unprecedented.
None of us had experienced such a draconian measure by the state in the democratic era, but, because of the transparency and the explanations for the decisions we, by and large, welcomed the intervention.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his weekly addresses to the nation – warmly referred to as “family meetings” – kept most of the country in the loop on every step the state had to take in preparing our defences, no matter how difficult.
It was impressive leadership, and I don’t know many people who didn’t wholeheartedly embrace the measures put in place to ensure the worst forecasts of infection rates and fatalities in that mad March month weren’t proved true.
Reviewing now what has been the most difficult crisis to face any country, let alone a country such as ours with our poor fiscal state, we can say that the worst has not come true.
Our move to level 2 was well ahead of schedule as the daily infection rate was declining and continues to do so. Credit is due for the health response that we mustered despite the limitations on the state’s war chest.
However, in saying this, there was an unnecessary casualty in the management of this crisis: a breakdown in the trust between the state, business, labour and the citizenry as a whole.
Unfortunately, the initial openness and transparency didn’t last.
The evidence couldn’t be clearer in the long queues outside liquor outlets this week as chatter on social media grew that the state was to reintroduce the ban on the sale of alcohol for the third time since March. These rumours stirred a buying frenzy as South Africans stocked up.
Rumours of an imminent return of the ban were eventually dismissed by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The only reason I can fathom for the nearpanic buying of alcohol is the lack of transparency by the government as the lockdown dragged on.
Faced with difficult trade-offs in the management of an outbreak that has taken the lives of more than 13 150 South Africans in five months, we understand that some deliberations were rather sensitive. The choice between life and the operation of an economy is not one any president would hope to face.
To reduce the stresses of this delicate balancing act, the government needed to have remained as transparent as possible in its decision-making processes, with the president standing before the nation and explaining the reasons for the decisions. It was this wave that took us into the lockdown and, for the most part, kept South Africans in their homes. It’s a level of transparency that should have spread through into the procurement of personal protective equipment and, even more critically, into local government.
The long lines outside bottle stores are a lesson on the need for the state to remain as open and transparent as possible, particularly in matters relating to this unprecedented pandemic.
This could have been avoided with a commitment to transparency, an essential ingredient in our early response to Covid-19. In the absence of the correct information, false news flourishes. In practice, this means the president’s “family meetings” should become a permanent feature in our daily lives. There may not be dramatically important information every week, but they would bring along not only business and labour on the journey of managing this crisis, but also the country and its citizens.
It would breathe confidence into the ability of the state.
And as I have often said, it’s only through such confidence that an economic revival can be realised. The war against Covid-19 is not the same as wars of old, where it was imperative that information be kept from the enemy. There’s no enemy in this battle; the war can be won only by sharing as much information as possible.