Blowing in the wind — Thabo Mbeki’s warnings on ANC ‘renewal’ will be ignored

“What this [weakened state] will lead to in the end is that you will have capital and civil society running the country, and the democratic state will have disappeared." This failure of another ANC president should rather get off his high horse and come down to the Cape and see how things can be done by government without spouting off with his stupid nonsense, and without a bunch of crooked incompetent cadavers, sorry cadres, stealing the taxpayers blind. He really is an idiot.

When I read the comments to DM's articles, I wonder what the point is of having such a facility. Sure, there are some constructive contributions. But too many comments have little to no value, and contribute nothing to understanding or addressing the enormous challenges faced by the country. Perhaps DM could make a separate comments area for those who are unable to resist their impulses to lash out, blame, insult and generally blow off. A kind of whinge chamber, where people can see their frustrations in print, and perhaps get some sort of therapeutic dividend. I read much criticism in the DM, but find little in the way of constructive proposals as to how things can be fixed. If the ANC is incapable of doing what is necessary, the opposition does not have enough raw support, then new creative leaders need to be identified and displayed. We know that such people are to be found among SA's 60 plus million. DM and its readers should put more energy into creating a constructive national plan to fix things. Please protect us from lightweight, throwaway comments which merely take up air time! Let's focus on stories of success and learn how to spread the causes of success. Whinging, blaming, insulting are not going to help.

Ramaphosa could have started implementing ANC "renewal" the minute he became president in 2017 by simply purging his cabinet of dishonest and incompetent ministers and replacing them with people who could do an honest day's work without looting the system. Instead he elected to keep all the bad eggs (his beloved 'Collective') and liaised closely with them to ensure that both he and they remained in situ by covering each others backs. That rot is now so deeply entrenched that it is irreversible and will assist greatly in the present party collapse now underway.

Mbeki cannot point fingers. The lack of spending on maintenance at Eskom, Rand Water & Transnet started while he was in power. His lack of border control & 'quiet diplomacy' with Zimbabwe was purely aimed at protecting family mining interests in Zimbabwe & joint ownership with Zimbabwean partners in mines in DRC.

These folks in the anc don’t understand democracy and don’t want to understand it …..

The poor has lost hope and the only faction of this society extending a hand of any form of help and support is the private sector. The ANC does nothing for the poor. The ANC stole their dreams and trampled their hope and has no right to their support. Privatisation will not kill democracy. If people have human rights there will be democracy. If people have hospitals and schools and houses and transport there will be democracy. If the taxes paid by the rich and not so rich are not stolen and go to developing the country and to create better lives for all South Africa will certainly be a democracy at last. The only reason for resisting a status quo where capitalism supports a growing economy in a democratic society is the hunger for power, not to govern or distribute wealth, but for those in power to take from the poor in order to enrich themselves through the work and suffering of others - the only thing the ANC, under each and every president, has mastered. Who is Mbeki anyway to tell anybody what to do? Renew the ANC? To become what?

The article deservedly draws attention, as the Mbeki presidency arguably brought the most substantial economic post-apartheid success. This was rooted in Mbeki’s strong Finance team led by Trevor Manual and National Treasury, and a constructive public-private relationship. But there stops this article’s economic wisdom, especially in the crude assertion that “privatisation is a double-edged sword, which can leave the rich with better services and the poor with almost nothing”. Of course, this might well hold some validity, but it simply misses the underlying logic of a constructive relationship between the public and private sectors. Public-private partnership over the past 15 years at least has been a distortion through cosy, secretive, crooked patronage within an elite. But it missed the essence of such partnerships in more successfully, ethically countries, much of which did apply in the first 15 post-apartheid years or so. Some PPPs then struggled to mature, but in several cases the public sector got it right, contracting private partners to perform functions earlier provided by the public sector. Through such arrangements there have been around 40 PPPs in South Africa since the 1990s, delivered with mixed results. Where there have been failures or misdemeanors, they were not intrinsically due to private sector involvement. Instead, public sector governance has all but collapsed in many parts of government since the Zuma years, made possible by a collapse of ethics in government, rather than due to private sector involvement. This has been facilitated greatly by under skilled staff in many public sector institutions, facilitated by cadre employment which intrinsically has little regard for professional management. This is where change must come, whether the ANC rules or not, or whether the private sector gets contracted or not. Failure to professionalize the system of public sector governance, is at the root of the malfunctioning of government in South Africa – NOT PPPs.

There are simple solutions which if managed correctly can provide help from Capital and Private concerns to those less advantaged. What if Netcare, Life Hospitals, Mediclinic etc, instead of paying corporate tax ran the government hospitals on behalf of the Dept of Health for free, this would remove the "middleman" with sticky fingers and remove the political interference of these institutions.

First, let's remember Mbeki's time in government and his response to criticism; he denied AIDS existed, ignored warnings about Eskom, defended the arms deal, and did not take kindly to criticism. A leopard does not change its spots, cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear etc. The ANC has utterly failed to govern or grow this country, and perhaps 'resigning' from the ANC would have more impact.

The corruption started well before Zuma - it enabled him to get into office and lest we forget, it was Vavi and Malema, as heads of Cosatu and the Youth League respectively, who rammed Zuma through, and then walked away without so much as an apology when the Zuptas put corruption on steroids. It's also not abated under Cyril 'stuff it in the couch' Ramaphosa. Moreover, Mbeki shows his denialist roots again by refusing to acknowledge this, or the fact that 'our people' have been ritually abused by the ANC State, to the point exhaustion. They're not your people, Mbeki, South Africa is not your country - it's ours, and you've pulverised it through corruption, cadre deployment and absolute ineptitude, where party fealty is prized over any kind of actual ability. If you're so determined that 'capital' shouldn't run the country, try actually running it properly as government. Except you can't - or more pertinently, the ANC won't run it properly as long as there are tenders to be dished out.