Seeing promised land is just a start
SA NEEDS TO BE THE CAPABLE STATE
A FEW weeks ago Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane held a breakfast briefing with editors in which she took her audience on a tour of her administration’s achievements, the challenges the province faced and the better future that lay ahead for the people of the nation’s economic heartland.
She told the chiefs of the scribbling tribe that 80% of Gauteng ’ s population now lived in formal housing, 87% of households use electricity, while 98% have piped water.
On the education front, the proportion of those with no education had dropped from nearly 10% in 1996 to just under 4% by the last census, and those with a post-matric qualification had increased from 9.9% to 18.1%. A positive tale all round. It was an impressive reminder of what has been achieved since South Africa became a democracy.
Even the worst cynics among us can’t argue with such facts. The reality is that the change is visible on the ground and those who choose not to see it are wilfully blind. For instance, the people of the once dusty Soweto can today boast about green lungs, several malls, a state-of-the-art sports facility and the main Business Studies campus of the University of Johannesburg in their midst.
Anyone who still doubted that change had come would need to observe the magnificent transformation of that blessed and holy cathedral of football known as Orlando Stadium.
This lowly newspaperman has said this before but it is worth repeating: Could the authorities please consider declaring the great cathedral a national heritage site?
Anyway, before I get accused by selfish, partisan forces of abusing this space, let me get back to Mokonyane.
In chronicling the achievements of the post-apartheid order, she highlighted the transformation of Diepsloot from a squatter camp to a formal township. She challenged the gathered editors to get out of their comfort zones and go check out Diepsloot for themselves.
By that afternoon, however, it was Mokonyane who had to dash to Diepsloot. Not to marvel at change but to calm residents who were baying for the blood of the rapist killers of two little girls.
Zandile and Yonelisa Mali’s bloodied bodies had been found that morning and residents were angry at the authorities for not doing enough to protect them.
While comforting the families, Mokonyane assured the community that not an ounce of energy would be spared in apprehending and bringing the perpetrators to justice and ensuring that such incidents did not recur.
But the people would hear none of her soothing words.
In Diepsloot, Mokonyane was the representative of a system that was seen to be failing the people. Being ignored was the punishment she received.
This weekend, Mokonyane found herself directly under attack when she visited the volatile township of Bekkersdal on Gauteng’s West Rand. To the residents of Bekkersdal, who had been violently protesting and demanding the dissolution of their municipal council, she was not just the representative of the system that was failing them, she was the system.
Therein lies the quandary that the ANC finds itself in as it goes into next year’s elections. The party can right- fully boast about all the changes it has made to people’s lives over the past two decades. The people will be grateful that they live an eminently better life now than under apartheid.
But their expectations have also been heightened. Once that better life had been delivered, they expected it to be sustained and improved even more. They expected infrastructure to be maintained, services to be delivered efficiently, civil servants to respect them and for public representatives to be accountable.
In short, they expected what the National Develop- ment Plan calls the “Capable State ”. That is where South Africa’s governing party has failed dismally.
It has led the people across the sea and shown them
Expectations of the people have been heightened
what the promised land has to offer but has come short in fulfilling that promise.
The communities with the electrified houses expect the grid to be maintained. Those who now have water do not want to experience weeks of drought because burst pipes have not been fixed.
Those who have been through an education – no matter how rudimentary – expect their learnings to take them to a higher plane.
Communities with clinics expect them to work for them and those with police stations expect a certain level of security. Those with tarred roads expect them to be kept in a better state than those in Blantyre and Lilongwe.
But on-the-ground delivery has often failed to live up to these expectations.
A combination of incapac- ity, ineptitude and corruption has rendered the state incapable.
The result of this failure has been the undermining of authority, institutions of governance, the people who man those institutions and those seen to have some kind of relationship with those institutions. This can have longterm implications for the credibility of the state and the stability of the country.
So if there is one thing South Africans should unite around it is the need for the building of the Capable State.
(Oh, and the quest for the Second Star of course.)