SA needs policies that work, we can’t be sentimental over ones that don’t

Two incidents, both related to state policy aimed at distributing economic opportunities better and in favour of those previously excluded, have set tongues wagging.

Two Sundays ago, Business Times reported Eskom board director Mteto Nyati saying certain requirements in the procurement space which in his view did not bring value or encouraged internal corruption “would need to be reviewed and changed where appropriate.”

The ink had hardly dried when it was reported at the weekend that finance minister Enoch Godongwana had promulgated new preferential procurement regulations to amend some regulations relating to BEE requirements at state-owned enterprises (SoE).

In practice, this means that suppliers doing business with SoEs like Eskom, Transnet and Denel who do not have a certain level BEE scoring would no longer be disqualified purely on that basis, provided they meet other criteria.

Needless to say, these proposals are controversial. The reasons the SA economy has traditionally favoured white people and males in particular was as a result of government policies.

It stands to reason that if a wealth gap was artificially created by state policies, it can be closed by different policies. It is important that, regardless of how we feel about one or other government policy, that we steer away from the temptation to regard these as though they were immutable laws of nature or a religion’s holy text that must stand until the end of the times.

Our point of departure should be that government policy must be informed by and respond to the context in which it is created. It should evolve and be expected to.

Whether it stays or changes should be informed by the realities of the day and not our feelings about it. We must be partial to the needs of the country at any given time rather than on policies themselves. Every state policy, no matter how long it has been on the books, should be available for re-evaluation and scrutiny. It is not good enough to say that an idea has been part of our life for a long time and it should, purely for that reason, stay.

Laws should also not be changed just because someone out there has some bright idea that has not been tested or that may not be applicable for our context and reality.

We do not have a shortage of policies that might have had sincere motives but have since shown themselves to have unintended consequences or some loopholes to circumvent the intended goals. BEE policy is one such policy area. It has created an industry out of fronting or token blacks who are business persons only on paper. The migration policy is another. The desire to open the country up after years of apartheid isolation has had the unintended consequence of a migration system that the state is failing to manage. SA has become a transit point for international crime syndicates and terrorist outfits. SA passports are becoming suspect because of the ease they can be acquired by anyone. Those in education, health, postschool training, youth employment and many other sectors have their own stories of unintended consequences of well-meant policies. In some cases, the policies have been made without support of those involved in the daily experience of what the policy intended to address.

A reasonable state is one that recognises that human beings are fallible and make errors in crafting laws and policies. Such a state corrects and modifies as necessary.

It is also important not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater and, where necessary, change aspects of the policy that have weaknesses and not the entire policy. So, whatever one might think about Nyati or Godongwana, it is important to never be wedded to any position.

Even using “wedded” seems appropriate given that Stats SA says four in every 10 marriages end in the first 10 years, showing even marriage is not always permanent. But I digress. SA demands a reset. What has worked must be replicated and its lessons shared. What has not worked or has been made irrelevant by changes in the context, must be ditched and replaced with what does. We cannot afford to be sentimental.