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Opinionista

It’s bad and we all know it. Now to forge a new path for SA. Simple, but not easy

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Songezo Zibi is the national leader of Rise Mzansi.

There has never been a better time than now to build national unity of purpose for South Africa — when the outlook is bleak and hope is seemingly scarce.

Some weeks ago, and following her reading of my latest book, Manifesto — A New Vision for South Africa, my former colleague in the news business, Ferial Haffajee, wrote on this very platform that I had begun a presidential campaign. This introduced me to some unique difficulties, such as people asking me for a website for the said campaign or political party so they could sign up.

Obviously, I have neither a campaign office nor a political party, so these ended up being very interesting conversations about ways in which we can build a better future. These conversations are similar to those at book events.

People are deeply frustrated and angry — enraged, actually. They are furious that the future is at real risk of destruction due to corruption, incompetence and political arrogance. Persistent load shedding, high unemployment and the resultant poverty, rampant crime and collapsing municipalities have a choking effect on the daily lives of South Africans from all walks of life.

They are terrified that desperation will unleash an orgy of violence driven by populist demagogues who see the hardships of millions of South Africans as an opportunity to accumulate power. The July 2021 riots may yet be repeated and on a larger scale, while anti-immigrant sentiment continues to have violent undertones as mysterious and well-known actors subtly agitate for a bloodbath.

One does not need to live in Gqeberha where residents have to go without bathing for days on end because there is no water as no one in authority thought to plan for a time such as this.

The Phala Phala incident in which President Cyril Ramaphosa has admitted that a theft of foreign currency from his house took place, and whose quantum he mysteriously refuses to divulge, has finally put paid to the mistaken belief that anyone from the ANC can restore integrity and meaning to public life.

So, in short, it’s bad and we all know it.

Theatrical visits to gruesome crime scenes don’t deliver better policing, nor do Aaron Motsoaledi’s opportunistic and self-righteous rants against immigrants fix the economy and create jobs for South Africans while he presides over a broken immigration system for which he has no discernible plan to fix.

But I also want to argue that we face a profound moment of choosing whether we want a bright or grim future. I believe a bright future is possible, if we do at least six things as I set out below.

ANC decline

The first is that we must internalise that the ANC is in precipitous decline and cannot be rescued. It must not be rescued — not by us who are victims of its misgovernance over the last two decades. We must explore political alternatives; a challenging prospect given how many South Africans have lost faith in political parties and political representatives.

My advice in this regard is that anyone reading this article, who is not already connected to a civil society organisation that agitates for political accountability and change, must find one urgently. Organising ourselves and campaigning for a better political system and culture is the very first step, because without a functional and accountable system, we have nothing upon which to build a better tomorrow.

Electoral system

Second, we must unite behind a campaign to change the electoral system in a meaningful way — not the slow-walking token effort the ANC (as the majority party in national government) is forced to undertake because of the Constitutional Court’s ruling. This must be one of our political demands — any party that has no plan for a more representative system should not get the vote in 2024.

If the ANC and other political parties refuse, then we must insist on a referendum preceded by proper public engagement and education. Democracy is a permanent experiment in self-government. When one way of representation yields more problems than it purports to solve, we must look for another way.

We must sign petitions, write emails, send letters and picket to demand political reforms that will reduce the power of political party bosses and return it to the people.

I write in Manifesto that this will enable us to have proper national electoral and administrative districts that, whether a matter is national, provincial or local, will make the elected representatives directly accountable to the people.

Frame challenges properly

Third, we must frame our challenges in the right way so that we may find appropriate solutions. One of these is unemployment, which is worse than it was in 2008, when sections of the ANC argued that new policies were needed to fire up the economy and create jobs. Neither happened. We have the exact opposite.

Earlier this month, Statistics South Africa released the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey which once again demonstrated the depth and persistence of unemployment, and the unsustainable level of youth unemployment. According to the survey, just over 50% of the unemployed do not have matric, which means they are unlikely to have a skill of any sustainable usefulness — 40% have matric, but no other qualification of any kind.

Even if the economy were doing a little better, it is a terrible idea to have so many people without skills before or after leaving school. This means we have to make drastic changes to our schooling to expand in-school skills training and vocational work, and post-school non-university training.

These do not have to be degrees, but skills that better equip people to find work.

At a fiscal and industrial policy level, we must consider carefully sectors in which activity and demand can be stimulated through a combination of incentives, public-private partnerships and fiscal investments. A “spray-and-pray” approach has not worked and will never work.

Simply put, “industrialising” to create skilled jobs when the bulk of unemployed do not have that skill does not strike me as a way of solving the bulk of the unemployment problem.

We must change our language so we can reframe our thinking around this issue, and be more concise in determining areas of cooperation and trade-offs between business and labour unions.

The objective here is to ensure that small start-up enterprises can much more easily find young workers who have some skill, but need further on-the-job training to build experience and earn a higher income as unionised workers.

Municipalities

The fourth priority is to urgently rescue municipalities. They have all but collapsed, yet they are at the coalface of service delivery to the very vulnerable and businesses alike. Rotten electricity, road, water and logistical infrastructure is increasing the cost of doing business, which is nearly impossible to handle for the small operators we rely on to create jobs.

Here we have a real conundrum in striking a balance between democratic accountability, which is a pipedream, and central government intervention. I do not believe it is appropriate to provide financial support to municipalities that have exceptionally poor administration, as the Auditor-General has reported in her report. Under these circumstances, there is no choice but to place them under administration until they are financially viable.

As I write this, I am aware that some of the provincial departments of cooperative governance are led by people of weak character and skill — and in some instances ill intention — so ultimately we have to agitate for political change in 2026. Ultimately, we know which party runs and ruins the collapsing municipalities. We cannot skirt around the issues any more.

Social relief

Fifth, we must agree on a comprehensive social relief package for the millions at risk of hunger. Although I am personally not a fan of the Basic Income Grant in isolation of solutions to the above, I also accept that it is unacceptable for so many to not know how they are going to put food on the table. It is unconscionable.

In this context, the existing Covid relief grant — which I think can be a slightly bigger Job-Seekers Grant (looking for work costs money) — should be extended at least for the medium-term fiscal framework. The real tragedy here is that there would probably be much more money for this had the ANC not been in charge, wasting funds on a daily basis.

Electricity

Finally, we must take a decision to not only improve the quality and reliability of electricity supply, but to lower the unit cost of electricity consumption within five years. That means doing two seemingly contradictory things at the same time.

The first is to deal decisively with Eskom’s debt mountain. Screaming at Andre de Ruyter does not resolve that accounting problem, and it is a significant obstacle. In this respect, I believe the government should bite the bullet and find about R60-billion over the medium term to relieve Eskom.

But that must be linked to the second: a clear plan to ramp up renewable energy supply with specific annual incremental targets for the next five years. 

Renewable energy is an opportunity to broaden economic inclusivity, using a combination of pension fund and fiscal resources to promote region-based producers to supply local authorities from wind and solar farms.

None of this will happen with the complacency and slow pace that characterises this and previous governments. It will also not happen without the credibility needed to bring together varied interests and providers of capital, to agree on these mutually destructive and beneficial priorities so that we can have shared benefits in the future.

Ultimately, that is a factor of visionary leadership — which is lacking — but is no reason not to fight on. DM/MC

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Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Geoff Krige says:

    Thank you Mr Zibi. We have a plan, to put in place of the incoherent muddling along of the ANC. But do we have time? The desperation of so many has another insurrection lurking on the horizon. The skills pool, emptied out and flung to the nations by the ANC, will take time to rebuild. The fiscus, robbed mercilessly by the ANC, will not easily fund necessary new grants or investments. The SOEs and municipalities, managed almost to extinction by the ANC, will not easily provide the underlying support structures necessary to a thriving economy and country. But a plan gives some hope, and something to provide focus for the many good South Africans around.

  • Confucious Says says:

    Just remember what the president said during an interview towards the end of the riots last year! He said that “racism is not what we thought it was”! A clear acknowledgment to peopler sticking together to protect livelihoods. Much of the problems that SA faces are stoked by horrible politics and populist rubbish. For the most part, SA citizens just want to live in peace and build prosperity. It is possible, if we are allowed to do it.

  • Change is Good says:

    I am with you – The country came together to get rid of Jacob Zuma. All the opposition parties, all institutions who believe in an promote Democracy, religious groups, Business and SA citizens need to unite again to demand 2 things.
    We need a referendum on the Electoral system.
    Replace all the Ministers and government officials who are stalling renewable energy rollout.

  • Dennis Bailey says:

    Visionaries in leadership … now there’s a thought!

  • Dave Reynell says:

    I do not think that time is on our side. The rot is deeply entrenched. The inability to think ahead, the lack of work ethic, the low standards of education, entitlement and cadre deployment have all taken us to where we are now. How does one change this ?

  • Hermann Funk says:

    The cornerstone for resuscitating this country could be the tens of thousands of smallholder farmers by placing them at the core of creating and fostering socioeconomically vibrant communities. This could be achieved at relatively low cost but with huge benefits

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