Illustrative image | Minister of Higher Education Buti Manamela. (Photo: Frennie Shivambu / Gallo Images) | Minister of Transportation Barbara Creecy. (Photo: Gallo Images / OJ Koloti) | ANC flag. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach) | Transnet logo. (Photo: Leila Dougan) | Eskom power station. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images) 
So dire is the state of so many of our towns and cities, it is easy to forget just how much has changed in South Africa in the past two years or so.
Load shedding, which was strangling our economy, has disappeared - along with the fear of it.
Eskom has now rolled out what looks like a cogent plan to deal with load reduction.
Transnet appears to be making significant progress in improving its railway service for the mines on which so much of our economy still depends. On Wednesday, 29 October 2025, Kumba Iron Ore reported: “Total sales increased by 7% … reflecting improved rail performance.” Other mines have reported a similar picture.
On Sunday, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy confirmed that she was asking the private sector to play a much bigger role in our railway system. These plans even include requests for information about rapid rail links between our major cities.
Last week, Higher Education Minister Buti Manamela announced that the government was going to start a process to recognise private universities for the first time. These institutions would be able to confer qualifications that could be called “degrees”.
This should mean that, over time, the pressure on state-owned institutions will finally start to ease, as the private higher education sector is likely to start growing even more strongly.
Five years ago, getting a driver’s licence card in Gauteng was a nightmare for almost everyone. Now the driving licence testing centre in Waterfall in Gauteng has a rating of 4.47 (out of a possible five) on Hellopeter.
Meanwhile, other processes of reform continue.
Read more: The GNU has failed the only test that matters: growing the economy and delivering jobs
The South African Revenue Service confirmed on Wednesday it had taken in more money than previously expected for the first six months of the fiscal year.
Our police service, known by millions of people to have corrupt leaders, is currently going through a process that has the potential to lead to real reform.
And while the National Prosecuting Authority and our criminal justice system have been much maligned over the past few years, people such as Ace Magashule are fighting off charges, while an allegedly dangerous criminal, who has previously entertained a former police minister at breakfast, Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, is currently in jail.
To look at these and other examples is surely to see progress. Importantly, that is progress that should, potentially soon, lead people to see that their lives are improving.
Unfortunately, much of this “progress” is obscured. For millions of people, perhaps most of our people, they see no change at all.
They might appreciate having no load shedding, but can’t afford much electricity anyway.
Trains carrying coal and iron ore mean nothing to their lives if they finished school at 14 and a driver’s licence is something they only aspire to.
All of that said, the fundamental changes to our economy through the big reforms around electricity and transport should, over time, lead to an uptick in economic growth.
With more electricity and a more efficient transport system, more companies should invest in growth.
For the moment, that investment seems hard to see. While this is hugely contested, it actually appears companies are holding on to capital rather than investing.
ANC’s only choice
There is another aspect of these changes that may prove to be critical for our future.
In the past, it has often appeared that some aspects of government policy were almost set in stone. This was because the ANC simply refused to make these changes. And, at the time, the ANC appeared to have a solid lock on power.
Now, that is no longer the case and, instead, the ANC is often the party implementing these changes. Key to all of this is the fact that the private sector is much more involved in services previously controlled only by the government.
The ANC, while formally saying it wanted a “mixed economy” in South Africa, generally seemed to prefer a bigger role for the government. As a result, efforts to reduce the role of the government, either through the privatisation of state-owned enterprises or other means, were often hugely controversial.
Until last year’s elections, some in the ANC appeared determined to actually increase the state’s role in our society. For example, the party campaigned on the introduction of National Health Insurance, which would severely curtail the role of the private sector in our healthcare system.
Eleven years ago, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, then and now the minister of health, said proudly that he would never allow private institutions to train doctors.
His rationale was not based on the obvious shortage of doctors, but that “only the children of rich families will be able to become doctors”. As was pointed out at the time, this was all about the people who would become doctors, with no thought given to the patients who could now be treated because more people would have been trained to be doctors.
It is the ANC that has allowed the private sector to generate and sell electricity, and to play a role in Eskom.
Creecy, who is now unveiling major changes in our railway system, is also from the ANC.
And Manamela, who is now opening space for private universities, comes not just from the ANC, but from the SACP. One wonders what one of his predecessors, Blade Nzimande, might think about all of this.
The reason the ANC is making these changes is obvious; it’s tried using the state, but through its own policy mistakes and the incompetence of many of its deployees it has come to realise there may be only one option left.
At the same time, ideology may have become an expensive luxury. So pressing are the needs of voters, the party has no other choice.
All of this is an important aspect of what will hopefully become a more competitive and accountable democracy.
Many people in the ANC have realised, finally, that if it wants to have any hope in elections, it has to show that it can implement policy that will improve people’s lives.
This new ideological ambiguity might well lead to better policy - and make it easier for parties with different histories to work with each other in the national coalition in the longer run. DM