Will change now continue?
THE change has started. Cyril Ramaphosa, the president-elect of South Africa (I am perhaps being presumptuous) has started undoing more than a decade of maladministration, dysfunction, cronyism, corruption and prebendialism.
Over the past few days we have seen the dead wood shaken out of Eskom.
Last year the SABC was fumigated and a new board put in place.
The matter has yet to be fully resolved, but the exit of Hlaudi Motsoeneng was a giant leap.
Next Ramaphosa may need to restore faith in the Treasury, keep the populists away from the Reserve Bank, and suggest that “fighters” take a course in civics, logic, non-violence in a constitutional democracy, and in language and comprehension – with at least a 70% required for passing the course. We will return to this, below. Another institution that needs to be shored up is the National Planning Commission (NPC), which is currently an adjunct of the Ministry of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (a ministry in the Presidency).
The department’s officials, and the NPC, need to be given stronger, more independent, progressive and astute leadership.
The planning function has to be institutionalised, paired with performance monitoring and evaluation under a political leader – a cabinet post – that is respected and open to new ideas.
The best laid plans go awry precisely because of poor project definition, inadequate planning and a lack of imagination.
One area of innovative thinking that is required is on artificial intelligence, a concept that needs a lot of definitional clarity, and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Since its last iteration, in 2012, these issues have been foregrounded by decision-makers in the global political economy – the very people who are gathering at Davos, this week, for the 2018 World Economic Forum meeting.
Among other, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is one of the areas that have to be opened up to research, consultation and policy direction.
The NPC is the place where these issues can and should be explored – with business and labour contributions forming part of innovations.
As far as I can tell, the unions are the least prepared for the advances in mechanisation, robotics and artificial intelligence, and how these will inevitably reshape work.
It is simply not good enough to focus, solely, on retention of jobs, better remuneration and benefits, and increased bargaining power – without preparing for innovation, sustainability and re-skilling existing union members.
Advances in technology will result in job losses – it would be best if workers were provided with transferable skills. Sadly, all of this is moot. Whatever good intentions Ramaphosa and a fresh team of advisers may have may come to naught.
There is very little chance that they will be given the time and space to fully restore confidence in the country’s political economy and the institutions upon which it rests.
Consider the following.
In an appeal reported over the weekend advocates Malini Govender and Knorx Molelle, who lead the investigations into state-capture-related cases, asked for space and time to do their work.
Govender and Molelle, and their team of 20 officials from the National Prosecuting Authority, investigators from the Hawks, the Financial Intelligence Centre, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission and National Treasury want to preserve R50-billion in assets across 17 cases brought by the Asset Forfeiture Unit in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.
“Give us the space to do our work to ensure that we maintain the integrity of the process and the integrity of the cases that we intend to bring to court. We need to properly and fully investigate these matters,” Govender said.
Molelle drove right to the point: “This is the first action of about 200 cases.
“We have prioritised some with the view of recovering R50-billion. “This is the first batch. “There is a lot more work that we are doing,” he said.
Time and space, it seems, are luxuries which Ramaphosa and his new team may not have.
Besides resistance from those implicated in alleged crimes and possible corruption, there is the small matter of the disrupters in red.
My sense is that the EFF will continue to inspire disruption, vituperation and violence as often as it has been.
It is certainly evident that almost every intervention that the EFF has initiated or been involved in over the past two years or so has resulted in public violence or disruption.
The most pronounced of these have been in parliament, during Fees Must Fall protests, and the H&M or the Overvaal School protests.
Let’s be clear, the EFF has every right to protest and take a stand against racism, but surely it does not have the right to violence and destruction of property.
Here, then, lies Ramaphosa’s greatest challenge.
There is every possibility that when he rises to speak in parliament next month, the EFF will make it difficult for him to get any work done. That may well suit the EFF. It has, until now, built its political credibility on chasing ambulances.