A capable, caring state is our right

This week, auditor general Kimi Makwetu released his annual report on government expenditure for the 2015-2016 financial year. It makes for depressing reading. The bulk of municipalities across the country are not compliant with the financial regulations under which they are supposed to operate, which is the first sign that they have not fulfilled their mandates in terms of delivering services to the people. There are 263 municipalities across South Africa. A mere 49 received a clean audit from Makwetu. That’s 18.6% of them; not even a fifth. Look at the figure the auditor general has given for the money lost in irregular expenditure or that is otherwise unaccounted for — it’s R16.81-billion.

Now, set the above facts beside what we report in this week’s Mail & Guardian, specifically these pieces:

• In the News section, we recount our visits to three schools in Gauteng that have no water or electricity, a situation that has forced them into, for instance, making illegal connections to keep their lights on. The sewerage and hygiene problems that arise because of a lack of water are ugly, but the schools have to live with them because the state (whether at national, provincial or local level) has been unable to deliver these basic services — which are, let us remind ourselves, also basic socioeconomic rights outlined in our Constitution.

• In the Health section, we report that clinics in KwaZulu-Natal are facing closure as budgets plummet and specialists leave. This is but one province and is perhaps not even the worst off; at any rate, the crisis is not limited to KwaZulu-Natal. It seems widespread across all the provinces, and the whole healthcare system is teetering on the brink of collapse.

• In Comment & Analysis, we consider what South Africa would have to report to the United Nations by way of its progress towards the goal of a substantively equal society, one that goes further than the political equality granted by the right to vote being extended to all, regardless of skin colour — a society in which the deep economic inequalities generated by apartheid are dealt with.

The commitment to substantive equality, which means a smaller gap between the richer and poorer members of South African society, was made by Nelson Mandela even as we made the first transitional steps out of the apartheid cage. The same commitment has been repeated by our subsequent heads of state, by the ANC in government and by the civil service as a whole (remember Batho Pele?), but South Africa has made only limited progress towards reaching that goal.

We have to ask why and how things are deteriorating so badly. Or, rather, we have to keep asking, with greater stridency and urgency as each year goes by and reports such as those of the auditor general, and South Africa’s submission to the UN, show things falling apart. Things should, rather, be coming together in what the governing party calls a “developmental state”.

Is it because the ANC has sung the “developmental state” song so loudly without, in fact, doing the development? (It has not paid much attention to the National Development Plan, which was supposedly the blueprint for and road map towards the kind of growth that has to take place in South Africa.)

Has it simply been too distracted by the games of power and self-aggrandisement to do the hard work of running a country? It certainly looks as though internal party battles, mostly fights for position and patronage, have been of more consuming interest to those in power than the needs of the people they claim to serve.

Perhaps it’s not as simple as taking the R16.81-billion figure and adding up how many schools that amount of money might have built (or provided with electricity and water or, indeed, competent teachers) —but it’s very tempting. How many clinics such as those crumbling in KwaZulu-Natal might an infusion of R16.81-billion have kept going? How many lives might have been saved, instances of pain and suffering reduced, or comfort given to people who are, given South Africa’s economic position, likely to be poor? Is there, as Bishop Trevor Huddleston put it back in the darkest days of apartheid, “naught for their comfort”?

Makwetu was clear in his diagnosis of the problems underlying the dismal performance of South Africa’s municipalities and metros: an unacceptable number of officials are not qualified for the job or do not possess the necessary skills, and there is too little accountability. There is also too little respect for the rule of law, he said, which seems to mean a tendency to flout procedures — or to engage in corrupt activity. The only solution there, as Makwetu notes, is more careful and responsible monitoring of officials and processes, with real consequences laid down for those who are unable to perform and for those guilty of breaking the law.

Good governance, basically — that’s what’s needed. It’s needed right at the very top, and it’s needed at local and municipal level. We will go nowhere but downhill unless we have what Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has called a “capable state”— the precondition for a caring state, which is what the schools and clinics mentioned here so desperately need.