A backward law on the land
As it prepares for its second national elective conference — or national people’s assembly, as the EFF calls it — the party led by Julius Malema believes it has a solution to the problems of collapsed state entities that have dragged the economy down with them. Be they municipalities, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or government departments, the EFF will fix them when it comes to power in about 15 years.
The first thing the party will do is repeal the Public Finance Management Act and the Municipal Finance Management Act, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu announced this week. That’s because the state won’t need to contract outside parties to build infrastructure — roads, toilets or power stations.
“The state will have its own internal capacity where it will do things for itself without needing private contractors,” Shivambu explained. “If a municipality needs to build a road it will just go ahead and build it.” No need for tenders to get the most cost-effective provider.
This is what the EFF calls rebuilding the capacity of the state to respond to public needs. “A strong developmental state should necessarily have political power and technical capacity to give developmental mandates to SOEs,” reads the EFF manifesto. “This perspective is informed by both current and historical examples of the critical role SOEs have played in the development of national economies.”
So, in the same way that many postcolonial Asian economies used SOEs and state-led interventions to drive development and transform themselves into industrial powers, so will an EFF government.
How will this revolutionary feat be achieved when SOEs and many municipalities have all but collapsed under the weight of corruption? “The current SOEs will also need to be strengthened and recapacitated with clear developmental mandates,” says the EFF.
While reviving dinosaurs such as Eskom, SAA and SABC, the EFF will also create new entities to replace the tenderpreneurs who have been feeding off the state for the past 25 years. Among them will be state-owned housing and road construction companies, a state cement manufacturer, state-owned banks, pharmaceutical and mining companies.
“To ensure good governance, best practices and the fulfilment of their developmental mandates, a state-owned assets supervision and administration commission will need to be established,” the EFF says. “These state companies will be buttressed by state ownership of critical parts of the value chains in which [they] operate — for example, petrochemicals (Sasol), steel (ArcelorMittal), et cetera, so that they produce essential inputs into the economy on a non-profit-maximisation basis.”
Like SAA, Eskom and the SABC these companies will “fulfil the mandate of fast-tracking economic development and providing quality services to our people; they will need the human resources and technical skills and will not operate on the basis of profit maximisation, but rather on their ability to meet these two core mandates.” Thus a revolutionary government and its citizens will have no need to import anything. All these companies will operate for the benefit of the people. Every employee will be paid a minimum R4,500 a month regardless of job title.
So yes, a president Julius Malema will do away with tenders. No more On Point Engineering or Bosasa. Oh, importantly, the state under Malema will be the custodian of all land and everybody who needs some will apply to the government, stating what it’s needed for, and then use it strictly for that purpose for not more than 30 years. Viva!