We walk on wealth but our minds are in chains
As excitement and, for others, trepidation set in ahead of local government elections, we must ask what must we do differently to help move our country further away from the challenges that politicians will talk about but never resolve.
After 27 years of voting and being surprised at the lack of delivery post-elections, we need to take a step away from the hurly-burly of campaign slogans and think more deeply about the state we are in and, importantly, how to extricate ourselves from the poverty that has come to characterise us.
Our challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality are known. That our politicians have time for campaigns but not so much time to ensure that actual delivery is done is known. That our economy is wallowing in junk status, even though there’s some semblance of progress, is common knowledge. That SA is resource-rich, being home to much-needed precious metals, is also public knowledge. Why is it that we remain so poor when our country is so mineral-rich?
With each passing election, politicians of every party promise job creation as a solution to the many problems facing voters. Perhaps tired of this, some Soweto residents told TimesLIVE last weekend they were weary of the ANC coming to Soweto on the eve of elections only to desert the people once the polls are over. “I am a staunch ANC member,” said Siyamthanda Mkhontwana. “But I am not going to vote for the ANC. They’re failing us as their supporters. We are tired, we are not going to vote,” he said. Others used more vulgar language to express their disgruntlement while Cyril Ramaphosa pleaded with them not to lose hope. Eskom, he announced, will attend to Soweto’s electricity issues.
And that’s a window into our elections. The ANC remembers its forgotten people, makes promises for a better life and, with each election, it manages just enough to gain victory, even if, quantitatively, it emerges bruised.
The DA complains of ANC corruption, cadre deployment and the safety of farmers. Its race issues and identity crisis seem to sufficiently stunt its progress to never constitute a major threat to a ruling party that is a threat to itself.
The EFF will feel under pressure to make even more radical promises that appeal to the youth and everyone who finds the fruits of liberation elusive. The push seems to be that if the economy is not working for us, why must it work for the tiny black middle class and so-called white monopoly capital? This will help the EFF to keep its position as kingmaker but without a single municipality won.
That about sums up our polls.
No surprises. The cycle will repeat itself. The politicians will make promises they know they won’t keep. Voters who think like Mkhontwana will stay clear of the polls. The politicians will do what they normally do after the polls — disappear. Eskom will punish the people of Soweto for not paying. Poverty will remain.
And that is a sad South African story. A story that has become so normal, so predictable yet frightening for what it portends. If we can’t get it right, who in Africa will?
We are producers of raw materials. Africa’s sophisticated economy can do no more than extract what nature endowed us with — and ship these to those who supposedly ought to know better — our former colonisers. We have been miners for decades. And miners we remain. We extract raw materials. We get excited by the “commodities boom” because this yields a bit more in tax for our national fiscus. And the few billion rands are then used to assuage the poor through R350 stipends to not buy into populist rebellions. No lives are changed. Poverty remains.
With institutions like the Wits Business School, Pretoria University’s Gibs, UCT and others, the skills we produce are not enough to help us change this sad South African tale. And yet we think ourselves free. The chains may be off, but we remain mentally chained. We know that beneficiation of minerals, the transformation of extracted ore, into consumable higher-value products, will radically change our economy.
Yet 27 years since our freedom we walk unclothed, without shelter, in rickety schools, on potholed roads atop the gold, platinum, diamonds, iron ore, manganese, chromium, copper, uranium, silver, titanium and many others. We are rich and yet so poor.
Some countries in Europe have no minerals, yet their residents are not as poor as we. Even Israel in the Middle East is very much a desert. Yet it, and many others elsewhere, use the knowledge economy to transform their lives.
Back at home, all we do is talk about Eskom quibbling with the poor of Soweto about the user-pays principle and power cuts. “Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains,” Jean-Jacques Rousseau said.
There can be no doubt that a country’s mineral wealth can, and must, be used to change the living conditions of its people. What’s different with us? Is it a curse? In the end, it is, for me, as much about leadership as it is about the electorate. We need leaders not waiting to be insulted on the campaign trail. Leaders who obsess about how to achieve fundamental change. And this is not about creating talk-shops about beneficiation, or investment conferences.
We also need an activist electorate. We need an electorate that punishes the DA for its racist approach to politics as it does the ANC for poor delivery.
When all is said and done, Ramaphosa, the presidents who came before him, thought leaders and activists committed to the success of our country are all complicit in the poverty that is this terrible South African story. At a time when information about how other countries succeed is ubiquitous, we have only ourselves to blame for our poverty in this mineral-rich country.
We have only ourselves to blame for our poverty in this mineral-rich country