SA urgently needs to pivot towards growth, competence and a shared vision
Politics is the art of the possible. It has always been necessary for leaders to walk a difficult path, as Bismarck’s aphorism describes, searching for what he termed “the attainable, the next best”.
Yet making tough choices is the mark of great leadership, as is seeking the right moment to do so. Crisis offers such an occasion, an opportunity to drive changes that otherwise would be politically unpalatable.
South Africa is locked in such a crisis. Will its leadership prove up to the task?
For the new year has begun inauspiciously with the Parliament buildings on fire. Aside from the obvious symbolism of institutional weakness, the fire serves as a reminder of the dysfunction that has come to characterise government. Fire doors were open. Security cameras were not monitored. Alarms only went off after firefighters had already arrived at the scene. Police failed to guard the building. A report after an earlier fire advising that action must be taken to avoid a disaster was ignored.
Added to this are dark hints that the fire is related to the battles within the ANC following the arrest of a man who is believed to have deliberately started the fire and who is said to be embedded in one way or another within the dysfunctional security apparatus.
The government, it seems, is barely able to govern, never mind chart a brave course to deal with the country’s many travails.
What is at the root of this display of weakness? Why is the government unable to take the difficult decisions needed to get the economy growing and to stop unemployment?
The answer is complex but there is a common thread running through it all: administrative competence has taken second place to party deployment for more than two decades and the state is bereft of the skills needed to manage a relatively sophisticated modern democracy.
The system of cadre deployment continues to be the source of ineptitude and corruption. Even Cyril Ramaphosa, believed to be the party’s best hope at reform, has testified at the Zondo Commission that cadre deployment is here to stay.
“Cadre deployment cannot be faulted in principle; it is a common feature of democratic practice around the world. But we would concede that there are weaknesses in its practical implementation that make the case for greater clarity, both within political parties and the state,” he said.
This is, of course, not the case. While political appointments to senior positions within government are common in democracies, this seldom extends to all layers of the civil service, including those requiring technical competence, as it does in South Africa where political loyalty trumps all else.
The result of this sort of statement is that there is dimming hope that the ANC is capable of understanding and managing the complex reforms needed to save SA from what is an accelerating slide into failure.
There are, of course, bright spots. Ramaphosa
has tried gamely to breathe new life into the criminal justice system. Treasury and the Reserve Bank remain committed to holding the fiscal line, although they are up against a bureaucracy with a voracious appetite for the financially deadly combination of more consumption expenditure and lower productivity.
But the minor cult that held that the “good people” in the ANC would rally the party to implement economic reforms needed to boost growth has lost almost all of its followers and many within the party even say that the only hope for the country lies in the ANC losing power.
The appeal of populism as a means of retaining power offers another scenario. But so hopeless has the ANC’s leadership become that it cannot even pivot to populism with credibility.
The temptation to give up hope and join the silent but, it must be noted, increasingly violent, extra-parliamentary majority is large.
Taxi associations and trucking unions own the roads, explaining why there are so few trains operating. Open shakedowns of the kind perpetrated by the mafia in its prime in construction and mining are the norm. In short, a slow-burning anarchy has been loosed upon the land. The fact that there remains order is, in large part, due to the actions of a few fearless institutions of accountability, the few professionals who continue within the public service and ordinary citizens who employ private agencies to educate their children, provide security and give medical treatment.
In an environment where the government has scaled back the matric pass mark to an effective 30%, the future seems pretty hopeless.
But to succumb to cynicism is to assign the country to decades of decline which will result in misery on a scale this country has not seen since the depths of apartheid.
There is only one path open: to work to ensure that those who share the country’s foundational democratic values and want to see functional, effective governance, a growing economy and a return to social development, get together and start to take charge.
The leaders of such a movement must come from the ranks of the brave members of government who sacrificed their careers to stop State Capture, from the opposition which played its role by exposing corruption and incompetence, and from the institutions of civil society that have stood tall to defend the Constitution and fight tax abuse.
The task the country faces today is to build a new politics united against State Capture and graft, but also a series of policies that will get South Africa facing forwards and meeting its economic and social challenges.
The outlines of what such a movement might positively stand for are also clear:
that remove the regulatory and state friction holding back investment. Primary among these is certainty around law and regulation;
It is legitimate for citizens in a democracy to expect the state, within the bounds of a liberal democratic constitution, to act decisively and with force, when this is justified, against those who break the law;
Rational economic policy choices
Law and order.
In short, a slow-burning anarchy has been loosed upon the land. The fact that there remains order is, in
large part, due to the actions of a few fearless institutions
of accountability
An effective, functional civil service.
Cadre deployment must end and be replaced by meritocratic appointments;
A shared vision for a prosperous future.
The navel-gazing of political infighting and corruption has distracted the country from understanding how SA fits into a rapidly changing, technology-disrupted world. It is time to build a national consensus on how SA fits into this world, and how skills are being developed to meet future challenges.
A failure to take decisive action now to pivot towards growth, order, competence and a shared vision will see the continuation of the present dysfunction where ministers openly express their love of fossil fuels, where major roads are blockaded while police stand by like spectators and the economy continues to slide into disaster.
The simple answer to the current South African condition is for leadership to display some spine, and double down on reforms. Without that, failure is the only option.