SONA: WHAT CYRIL SHOULD DO

We need to build self-reliant, sustainable communities. That can only come from a shift in thinking

Renowned physicist Albert Einstein once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” As a democracy, SA has been stuck when it comes to making meaningful socioeconomic progress, despite its venerated constitution. Could it be that we keep doing the same things over and over, regardless of the outcome?

With this in mind, I listened to President Cyril Ramaphosa delivering the annual January 8 statement in celebration of the founding of the ANC. Each year, the statement contains key pointers regarding the ruling party’s policy intentions on pressing national issues.

This year, I expected some indication of a change of course in response to the devastation of Covid — lessons learnt from both the pandemic itself and the impact of the government’s disaster management regulations.

Ramaphosa’s address touched on pressing issues (recovery, poverty, inequality, unemployment, land justice, corruption and the rule of law). He undertook to foster a social compact on poverty and jobs.

But I expected more. While I didn’t expect a total pivot from the ANC’s previous pathways, I did imagine there would be some discernible change in acknowledgment of failure — specifically regarding a more agile economic recovery. The social impact of Covid also demands a decisive response if we are to build resilient communities and individuals.

In particular, I expected a paradigm shift on rethinking work. I expected a policy of diversification that places work, rather than jobs, at the centre of rebuilding the economy, in compliance with the constitutional commitment to social justice. I also expected something on bridging the digital and infrastructural divides.

Instead, I was left with the distinct impression that SA’s job hopes are anchored on the government’s expanded public works programme and big business. Yet global wisdom shows it is small businesses that generate the bulk of work opportunities. And impact assessments by various organisations — local and international — show that small businesses have borne the brunt of Covid.

One of the lessons of Covid is the need for self-reliant ecosystems that offer work opportunities in people’s native communities, particularly in villages and townships. This makes it easier to temporarily close off areas to contain a pandemic.

Fostering self-reliant communities could mean tilting our investment drive to turn villages into cities or centres of production, such as manufacturing hubs, as China did. This would have multiplying effects on the economic and social fabric.

A shift towards such a work paradigm would disrupt the colonial economic architecture, cemented by apartheid policies, that transformed villages into labour reservoirs and built townships as temporary settlements for migrant labourers. It had a devastating effect on the ecosystems of selfreliance that produced entrepreneurs such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Sol Plaatje and Charlotte Maxeke.

A shift from jobs to work would also be responsive to the increasing number of young people who have initiated start-ups but lack policy, fiscal and infrastructural support.

The multiplying effect of the shift to work centricity could even boost food security. Many, particularly those who have been retrenched, may choose subsistence farming, with the possibility of selling surplus — an objective of the Thuma Foundation’s Siyazakhela Enterprising Communities initiative.

Building better together

In his January 8 address, Ramaphosa could also have addressed the social impact of the pandemic and the regulatory impact of lockdown rules. Education, mental health and social alienation come to mind here.

What have we lost? And how can we build better together?

There is no gainsaying the point that, to recover meaningfully and sustainably, we need an honest assessment of what we have lost and what opportunities we will seize for socioeconomic reconstruction to future-proof our communities against radical disruptions. That undoubtedly requires an investment in people as our greatest asset.

All is not lost. Ramaphosa will deliver his state of the nation (Sona) address in two weeks’ time. To ensure that he covers all bases and gets us unstuck, the Sona needs to map out a clear, constitutionally anchored vision of where we intend to be as a nation beyond Covid. An integrated plan of action to take us there should follow — and offer clarity on how we can rebuild sustainable communities.

It is my hope — and yours too, I trust — that in crafting the plan captured in the Sona, Ramaphosa and his administration will be guided by Einstein’s wisdom. Change is the only way of getting unstuck.

A shift towards such a work paradigm would disrupt the colonial economic architecture, cemented by apartheid