tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/cadre-deployment-37790/articlesCadre deployment – The Conversation2023-07-26T14:55:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096382023-07-26T14:55:22Z2023-07-26T14:55:22ZEskom and South Africa’s energy crisis: De Ruyter book strikes a chord but falls flat on economic fixes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539018/original/file-20230724-25-jlzet7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The former chief executive of South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has written a scathing critique of the ruling party’s practices that have seriously damaged the country’s economy. </p>
<p>Andre de Ruyter’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Power-Three-Years-Inside-ebook/dp/B0C577RTRQ">Truth to Power</a> is not the first exposé of the country’s <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/announcements/682/OCR_version_-_State_Capture_Commission_Report_Part_IV_Vol_III_-_Eskom.pdf">political and economic woes</a> under the African National Congress. But it strikes a sensitive chord because of the impact of recurring power cuts on the economy and <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-in-south-africa-are-playing-havoc-with-the-countrys-water-system-197952">daily life</a>, a crisis De Ruyter was hired to deal with.</p>
<p>Beyond his description of Eskom’s corruption and ineptitude is a subtler message that is equally disturbing. It’s De Ruyter’s prescription to end the state’s involvement in the economy, which he sees as a major obstacle to economic growth. In its place, he advocates a socially unhinged liberalisation of the economy (p231) in which the market is left to its devices. He observes that: </p>
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<p>Wherever governments have allocated resources, it has been an abysmal failure. </p>
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<p>What De Ruyter fails to grasp, though, is that what he advocates has been a core part of the ANC’s policies for over 25 years. </p>
<p>My view, based on 30 years of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/African-Miracle-Leadership-Colonial-Development/dp/0325000689#:%7E:text=Book%20details&text=The%20book%20examines%20the%20relationship,more%20resources%20and%20talent%20failed.">research</a>, writing and teaching the political economy of Africa, is that this would roll back whatever gains have been realised so far in redressing the segregated economy of colonial and apartheid eras. His version of neo-liberalism or unfettered market ideology and policy that emphasises the value of open markets with minimalist state regulations would worsen people’s living conditions. </p>
<p>My current research focuses on the relationship between democracy and development. States can and sometimes do use public policy to – in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/asias-next-giant-9780195076035?cc=us&lang=en&">words</a> of the late American political economist and scholar Alice H. Amsden – “govern the market”. Botswana’s post-colonial experience, discussed in <a href="https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/an-african-miracle-state-and-class-leadership-and-colonial-legacy">my 1999 book</a>, is most relevant to South Africa. At independence in 1966, Botswana had <a href="https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/an-african-miracle-state-and-class-leadership-and-colonial-legacy">little infrastructure and few opportunities</a>. But thanks to its first two presidents, Botswana has achieved a middle income country status as it has grown significantly for the past 50 years.</p>
<p>If the government of South Africa made good use of the state in governing and disciplining the market, it is highly likely that unemployment in the country would not be <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129481/unemployment-rate-by-population-group-in-south-africa/">what it is today</a>. Similarly, if the government of independent Botswana had followed De Ruyter’s prescription, the country would likely have become another basket case. </p>
<p>What South Africa needs is not neo-liberalism, but a new social contract between government, labour and business to create productive jobs and redress social injustices. Such a contract would include concrete milestones on targeted investments in productive sectors. It would demand that labour militancy and disruption meanwhile be kept at the minimum. </p>
<h2>De Ruyter’s key claims</h2>
<p>De Ruyter identifies four of the major causes of the country’s energy crisis. </p>
<p>First is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-ruling-party-has-favoured-loyalty-over-competence-now-cadre-deployment-has-come-back-to-bite-it-199208">deployment</a> of ANC party activists, or cadres, in state-owned enterprises. Many were not only ill-equipped for their jobs but sought to profit from their assignments through irregularities. This created criminal networks that destroyed some national enterprises.</p>
<p>Second is a coalition of actors he calls the “coal mafia” in control of coal supply to Eskom. They exported high quality coal and supplied low grade coal to Eskom. This led to regular collapses of Eskom’s power stations.</p>
<p>Third, he accuses the Minster of Minerals and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, a former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, of blocking the transition to green energy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/corruption-in-south-africa-former-ceos-explosive-book-exposes-how-state-power-utility-was-destroyed-206101">Corruption in South Africa: former CEO's explosive book exposes how state power utility was destroyed</a>
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<p>Fourth, De Ruyter claims the ANC government failed to retain experienced white engineers. The young white and black engineering graduates may be well trained but lack hands-on experience. Eskom was therefore left with a shortage of experienced engineers at a time when it needed them the most.</p>
<p>What is clear from both De Ruyter’s account and the findings of the Zondo Commission into <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/550966842/Judicial-Commission-of-Inquiry-Into-State-Capture-Report-Part-1#">state capture</a> is that the ANC leadership, particularly in the last two decades, sanctioned the abuse of public authority. In fact, some of the leaders flouted the ethical principles of the ANC itself by joining the ultra wealthy as inequality in the country deepened. </p>
<h2>Neo-liberalism will not deliver</h2>
<p>De Ruyter’s prescribed remedies amount to the repackaging of economic apartheid. The beneficiaries of racist policies and the ANC’s neo-liberalism would be put on steroids. His remedies are based on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4005615">policies</a> the World Bank imposed on the rest of Africa in 1981, policies that devastated the continent. </p>
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<p>He also blindly condemns the role of government in development (p112) and advocates the privatisation of the energy sector, knowing well that the white business establishment would be the biggest beneficiary of such reforms. </p>
<p>De Ruyter’s dismissal of the role of an activist state in the economy – one that governs the market– ignores the positive economic role of governments in such countries as <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/asias-next-giant-9780195076035?cc=us&lang=en&">South Korea</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv346sp7">Taiwan</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Japan-Governs-Rise-Developmental-State/dp/0393314502">Japan</a>.</p>
<p>Then there is his view about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-relief-grant-how-it-can-be-used-to-help-young-people-into-jobs-196512">basic income grant</a> for the poor, a policy which he says will entrench dependency on the state even further (p115). </p>
<p>He forgets that past segregationist policies gave nearly 87% of the land to white South Africans and heavily subsidised their education. They also subjected black workers to white exploitation, laying the foundations of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-a-fresh-approach-to-its-stubbornly-high-levels-of-inequality-87215">income and wealth inequality</a> that persists today between whites and blacks. </p>
<h2>What went wrong with the ANC government?</h2>
<p>Regardless of the weaknesses in De Ruyter’s contentions, the South African government’s record during the past two decades has been dreadful. One of the most precious assets the ANC brought into power in 1994 was the trust of the majority of citizens. </p>
<p>To preserve and reinforce this vital asset required a three-pronged strategy.</p>
<p>First, the state should have been more productively involved in the economy and efforts to eliminate corruption in order to improve social services for the poor majority. </p>
<p>The second task was to revitalise the economy by protecting and reforming old productive industries and investing in new enterprises. </p>
<p>Third, the ANC and its appointees should have been models of integrity in public service.</p>
<p>But successive ANC administrations, particularly since 2004, betrayed the trust of the majority in three ways. </p>
<p>First, the aspiring black elite’s rush to mimic the lifestyle of the former “master” clearly signalled that the liberation mindset essential for reconstruction and development was no longer fashionable. </p>
<p>Second, the government’s unrealistic belief that it could navigate the dominant neo-liberal global economic policies that laid to waste old industries such as textiles, thus preempting the possibility of a developmental state. </p>
<p>Third, the moral decline of the ANC leadership most cruelly exposed by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> and <a href="https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/State-Capture-in-South-Africa/?k=9781776148318">state capture</a> underscored the party’s impotence.</p>
<h2>Seeing beyond the nightmare</h2>
<p>It is widely acknowledged that neo-liberal policies and corruption are companions in the contemporary developing world. Thus, what South Africa needs is not an extreme version of neo-liberalism, but a new social pact that creates productive jobs and achieves transformative social justice. Only then can South Africa hope for an African renaissance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdi Ismail Samatar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa needs a new social contract whose core aim is the creation of dynamic economy.Abdi Ismail Samatar, Extraordinary Professor, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098832023-07-18T14:32:55Z2023-07-18T14:32:55ZNelson Mandela’s legacy is taking a battering because of the dismal state of South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538003/original/file-20230718-27-ey48jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, the late first president of democratic South Africa, is credited with the relatively peaceful transition from apartheid rule.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The multiple concerns about the dismal state of South Africa – including a <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/06/15/cf-south-africas-economy-loses-momentum-amid-record-power-cuts">stagnant and failing economy</a>, a seemingly incapable state, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-report-chronicles-extent-of-corruption-in-south-africa-but-will-action-follow-174441">massive corruption</a> – have led to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">questioning</a> of the political and economic settlement made in 1994 to end apartheid. The settlement is <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nelson-Mandela">strongly associated with Nelson Mandela</a>, who oversaw its progress to a successful conclusion. He subsequently underpinned it by promoting reconciliation with white people, especially Afrikaners, the former rulers.</p>
<p>The questioning of the 1994 settlement, and therefore Mandela’s legacy, has different dimensions, running through diverse narratives. One, associated with a faction of the governing African National Congress (ANC) that claims to stand for “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ret-and-what-does-it-want-the-radical-economic-transformation-faction-in-south-africa-explained-195949">radical economic transformation</a>”, is that the settlement was a “sell-out” to “<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-an-excuse-to-avoid-south-africas-real-problems-75143">white monopoly capital</a>”. Another is the inclination to lay the blame for state failure <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">on the constitution</a>, thereby deflecting responsibility for massive governance failures away from the ANC.</p>
<p>Yet another stems from the frustrations of recent black graduates and the mass of black unemployed for whom there are <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/Media%20release%20QLFS%20Q4%202022.pdf">no jobs</a>. There are also huge numbers of people without either <a href="https://apsdpr.org/index.php/apsdpr/article/view/372/739">adequate shelter</a> or <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=16235#:%7E:text=More%20than%20half%20a%20million,high%20risk%20of%20acute%20malnutrition.">enough to eat</a>. South Africans want someone to blame. While their search regularly targets a wide range of usual suspects, it also leads to a questioning of what Mandela really left behind. </p>
<p>It does not help that Mandela continues to be lionised by many, if not most, white people, who despite much grumbling about the many inconveniences of life in South Africa have largely continued to prosper.</p>
<p>This means that those of us who are social scientists and long-term observers of South Africa’s politics and history need to think carefully about how we think critically about Mandela’s legacy.</p>
<h2>Questioning Mandela’s legacy</h2>
<p>From a historian’s view the questioning of Mandela’s legacy is normal. Historians are always asking new questions and reassessing the past to gain new insights about the role important political leaders play.</p>
<p>This has posed particular problems for Mandela’s biographers. Biography has always had a problematic relationship with history as a discipline. This partly stems from history’s reluctance to endorse “Great Men” versions of the past. Partly from the more generic problem of assessing individuals’ role in shaping wider developments. Thus it has been with Mandela. Nonetheless, the six or seven <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Mandela+biopgraphies&rlz=1C1GCEA_enZA1007ZA1007&oq=Mandela+biopgraphies&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQABgNGIAEMgkIAhAAGA0YgAQyCQgDEC4YDRiABDIJCAQQABgNGIAEMggIBRAAGA0YHjIICAYQABgNGB4yCAgHEAAYDRgeMggICBAAGA0YHjIKCAkQABgFGA0YHtIBCDQ5NjNqMWo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">significant biographies of Mandela</a> may be said to revolve around the following arguments.</p>
<p>First, Mandela played a critical role in preventing a descent into total civil war. It was brutal enough as it was. Narratives at the time often suggested that the period 1990-94 was a “<a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2019-07-09-sas-transition-to-democracy-miracle-or-mediation">miracle</a>”, a difficult but “peaceful transition to democracy”. But this was misleading. <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02264/05lv02335/06lv02357/07lv02372/08lv02379.htm">Thousands died</a> in political violence during this time.</p>
<p>Mandela’s biographers argue that his initiating negotiations with the regime from jail, independently of the ANC, was crucial. Without his actions, the apartheid state would not have come to the party. This, even though by the time FW de Klerk, its last president, came to power, it was seeking a route to a settlement. </p>
<p>Second, Mandela played his cards carefully in steadily asserting his authority over the ANC. Although the ANC in exile had carefully choreographed the imprisoned Mandela as an icon around which international opposition to apartheid could be mobilised, there remained much questioning within the organisation following his release about his motivations and wisdom. Also whether he should replace the ailing <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Tambo</a> as its leader. That he proceeded to convince his doubters by constantly proclaiming his loyalty to the ANC, its militant “line” and his subjection to its discipline while simultaneously edging it towards negotiations is said to have been key to his establishing his claim to leadership. This was necessary to convince his doubters within the ANC that it could not defeat the regime on the field of battle. Hence there was a need for compromise with the regime.</p>
<p>Third, Mandela is credited with successfully steering the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiations which led to South Africa’s democracy</a>. That he played a limited part in negotiating much of the nitty-gritty of the new constitution is acknowledged. Yet, this is combined with recognition of his acute judgment of when to place pressure on the regime to secure concessions and when to adopt a more conciliatory line. Generally, it is agreed that the ANC outsmarted the apartheid government during the negotiations. Praise is correctly showered on Mandela for his role in bringing both the far right, under <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02426/05lv02691.htm">Constand Viljoen</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/buthelezis-retirement-wont-end-ethnic-traditionalism-in-south-africa-102213">Mangosuthu Buthelezi</a>’s quarrelsome Inkatha Freedom Movement <a href="https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf5601/files/Policy_Note_ID137.pdf">into the 1994 election at the very last moment</a>, without which it would have lacked legitimacy.</p>
<p>Fourth, while today it is recognised that a narrative of the time – that South Africans had negotiated the finest constitution in the world – was overcooked, the negotiations resulted in the country becoming a constitutional democracy. </p>
<p>We now know, of course, that the ANC has subverted much of the intention of the constitution and undermined many of its safeguards. <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-ruling-party-has-favoured-loyalty-over-competence-now-cadre-deployment-has-come-back-to-bite-it-199208">Its cadre deployment policy</a> of appointing loyalists to key state institutions has severely diminished the independence of the state machinery. Furthermore, the ANC has merged party with state. Above all, it has severely weakened the capacity of parliament to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-parliament-fails-to-hold-the-executive-to-account-history-shows-what-can-happen-192889">hold the president and ministers accountable</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">State Capture Commission</a> has laid bare the mechanics of all this in great detail. It has placed huge responsibility for this upon the ANC. Nonetheless, it is widely recognised by civil society that the constitution and the law still provide the fundamental basis for exacting political accountability. This is confirmed by the many judgments the Constitutional Court has <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-south-africas-constitutional-court-protecting-democracy-107443">rendered against the government</a>.</p>
<p>Fifth, while his critics often argue that Mandela leant over too far to appease whites, the counter-argument is that this grounded democracy. At the beginning of his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/318431.Long_Walk_to_Freedom">autobiography</a>, Mandela presents the struggle in South Africa as a clash between Afrikaner and African nationalisms. His role during negotiations can be viewed through the prism of his conviction of the need to reconcile these, as one could not defeat the other. Without reconciliation, however imperfect, there could be no making of a new nation. After all, what was the alternative? </p>
<h2>Capturing Mandela’s legacy</h2>
<p>There is never going to be a final assessment of Mandela’s legacy. How it is regarded will continue to change, depending on the destination South Africa travels to. If it really does become a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-political-risk-profile-has-gone-up-a-few-notches-but-its-not-yet-a-failed-state-170653">failed state</a>”, as the doomsters predict, there will be much need for reexamination of whether this failure has its roots in the constitutional settlement which Mandela did so much to bring about. For the moment, however, Mandela continues to inspire South Africans who place their hopes in constitutional democracy. What other hopes do they have?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209883/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is never going to be a final assessment of Mandela’s legacy. How it is regarded will continue to change, depending on the destination South Africa travels to.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061012023-05-24T13:42:03Z2023-05-24T13:42:03ZCorruption in South Africa: former CEO’s explosive book exposes how state power utility was destroyed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527785/original/file-20230523-19-yugb19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PenguinRandomHouse</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One repeated theme of the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/truth-power-my-three-years-inside-eskom/9781776390625#:%7E:text=De%20Ruyter%20candidly%20reflects%20on,to%20speak%20truth%20to%20power">memoir</a> Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, by Andre de Ruyter, former CEO of South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-electricity-supply-whats-tripping-the-switch-151331">troubled power utility</a>, Eskom, is that “negligence and carelessness had become cemented into the organisation”. </p>
<p>Dirt piled up at even the newest power stations until it damaged equipment, which stopped working – and some equipment disappeared beneath a layer of ash.</p>
<p>Integrity had been displaced by greed and crime: </p>
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<p>Corruption had metastasised to permeate much of the organisation. </p>
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<p>As a political scientist who has, among other topics, followed corruption and kleptocracy, this book ranks among the more informative.</p>
<p>De Ruyter (or his ghost writer) delivers a pacey, racy adventure <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/truth-power-my-three-years-inside-eskom/9781776390625">thriller</a>. Chapter after chapter reads like a horror story about Eskom, whose failure to generate enough electricity consistently for <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-and-food-safety-how-to-avoid-illness-during-loadshedding-200586">the past 15</a> years has <a href="https://www.investec.com/en_za/focus/economy/sa-s-load-shedding-how-the-sectors-are-being-affected.html">hobbled the economy</a>. </p>
<p>The book is also a sobering indication that parts of South Africa now fester with organised crime.</p>
<p>This book merits its place alongside <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/crispian-olver-how-to-steal-a-city/jywy-5080-g730?PPC=Y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgZaS7pbE3QIVS7DtCh0EGQXfEAAYASAAEgLszPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">How to Steal a City</a> and <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/how-to-steal-a-country-state-capture-and-hopes-for-the-future-in-south-africa/">How to Steal a Country</a>. These two books chronicle how corruption undermined respectively a city and a country to the level where they became dysfunctional.</p>
<h2>Brazen looting</h2>
<p>Another take-away is the devastating indictment of De Ruyter’s immediate predecessors as CEO, <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/matshela-koko/">Matshela Koko</a> and <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/brian-molefe/">Brian Molefe</a>. They appear as incompetent managers who ran into the ground what the Financial Times of London had praised as the world’s best state-owned enterprise as recently as 2001. Both <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-former-eskom-boss-matshela-koko-arrested-on-corruption-charges-20221027">Koko</a> and <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/molefe-singh-back-in-palm-ridge-specialised-commercial-crimes-court/">Molefe</a> have been charged with corruption – at Eskom and the transport parastatal Transet, respectively.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/explosive-revelations-about-south-africas-power-utility-why-new-electricity-minister-should-heed-the-words-of-former-eskom-ceo-201508">Explosive revelations about South Africa's power utility: why new electricity minister should heed the words of former Eskom CEO</a>
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<p>The standard joke about corruption is “Mr Ten Percent” – meaning a middleman who adds 10% onto the price of everything passing through his hands. Under Koko and Molefe, this had allegedly ballooned into “Mr Ten Thousand Percent”. </p>
<p>For example, De Ruyter writes that Eskom was just stopped in the nick of time from paying a middleman R238,000 for a cleaning mop. </p>
<p>Corruption focused on the procurement chain. One middleman bought knee-pads for R150 (US$7,80) and sold them to Eskom for R80,000 (US$4,200). Another bought a knee-pad for R4,025 (US$209) and sold it to Eskom for R934,950 (US$48,544). The same applied to toilet rolls and rubbish bags. One inevitable consequence of corruption on such a scale was that Eskom’s debt, which was R40 billion (US$2.076 billion) in 2007 (the year that former president Jacob Zuma came to power), ballooned to R483 billion (US$25 billion) by 2020 – which incurred R31 billion (US$160 million) in annual finance charges.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover showing a Caucasian man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>De Ruyter reveals that the “presidential” cartel (meaning one of the local mafias) pillaged Matla power station, the “Mesh-Kings” cartel Duvha power station, the “Legendaries” cartel Tutuka power station, and the “Chief” cartel Majuba power station. He writes that the going rate for bribes at Kusile power station is R200,000 (US$10,377) to falsify the delivery of one truckload of good quality coal. <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/special-investigating-unit-secure-another-preservation-order-matter-related-corruption">Kusile</a> is one of the two giant new coal-fired power stations which Eskom is relying on to end power cuts.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-bailout-of-eskom-wont-end-power-cuts-splitting-up-the-utility-can-as-other-countries-have-shown-200490">South Africa's bailout of Eskom won't end power cuts: splitting up the utility can, as other countries have shown</a>
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<p>The book says a senior officer at the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/dpci/index.php">Hawks</a>, the police’s priority crimes investigation units, tipped off De Ruyter how he was blocked in all his attempts to combat corruption at Eskom. Senior police officers, at least one prosecutor, and a senior magistrate, have also been bribed by the gangs. </p>
<h2>Noncomformist</h2>
<p>Eskom had 13 CEOs and acting CEOs in 13 years. Twenty-eight candidates, most of them black, rejected head-hunters’ offers to become CEO of Eskom. De Ruyter who was previously CEO of Nampak, took a pay cut (to R7 million) to accept the job, in the hope of accelerating Eskom’s transition from coal to renewables.</p>
<p>At the time of his appointment some commentators alleged that he was an African National Congress (ANC) cadre deployed to Eskom. The ANC’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">cadre deployment</a> policy is aimed at ensuring that all the levers of power are in loyal party hands – often regardless of ability and probity. But De Ruyter came <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/anc-claims-de-ruyter-is-trying-to-tarnish-its-image-ahead-of-elections-in-2024-20230426">into conflict</a> with the ruling party.</p>
<p>What caught De Ruyter out was the viciousness of the political attacks on him: smears of racism and financial impropriety. He had to devote many hours of office time to refuting them: </p>
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<p>occupying that seat at Megawatt Park comes with political baggage. </p>
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<p><a href="https://za.geoview.info/eskom_megawatt_park,32555009w">Megawatt Park</a> is Eskom’s head office in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>The book’s early chapters summarise how he was one of those Afrikaners with Dutch parents, who did not conform entirely to apartheid norms. The Afrikaner <em>volk</em> imposed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid">apartheid</a> regime onto South Africa for 42 years. In his high school years he became a card-carrying member of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Progressive-Federal-Party">Progressive Federal Party</a>, a liberal anti-apartheid opposition party, antecedent of the Democratic Alliance, which is now the official opposition to the governing party. </p>
<h2>Poisoning</h2>
<p>De Ruyter’s book mentions organising a routine Eskom stakeholders’ meeting at a guesthouse in Mpumalanga province. </p>
<p>To save time, he ordered that food be served on plates to table places, instead of buffet arrangements. The guesthouse management refused, due to fear of facilitating poisoning one or more guests – only buffet arrangements could thwart that. </p>
<p>He says that in Tshwane (Pretoria), the seat of government, the National Prosecution Authority no longer orders takeaway lunches for delivery to their premises. Instead, standard procedure is that a staff member buys lunches for all at random take-away shops. </p>
<p>This sinister development culminated in De Ruyter himself being poisoned with cyanide in his coffee in his office, demonstrating how mafia-type gangs had recruited at least one Eskom headquarters staff member.</p>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>In several places De Ruyter also touches on other issues. The unintended consequence of some government policies, such as localisation and <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/comm_media/press/2022/2022110801%20Media%20Statement%20-%20PPP%20Regulations%202022.pdf">preferential procurement</a>, is that it costs Eskom two and a half times more to pay for each kilometre of transmission cable than it costs <a href="https://www.nampower.com.na/">Nampower</a> Namibia’s power utility, just across the border. </p>
<p>What stands out from this memoir is that the success of a company demands that a CEO, managers, artisans, guards, and cleaners all take the attitude that the buck stops with them – seven days a week – and act accordingly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The book shows how parts of South Africa now fester with organised crime.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992082023-02-07T09:02:12Z2023-02-07T09:02:12ZSouth Africa’s ruling party has favoured loyalty over competence - now cadre deployment has come back to bite it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508636/original/file-20230207-17-m2lqtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supra Mahumapelo, former premier of North West Province, former president Jacob Zuma and current president Cyril Ramaphosa at an ANC celebration in 2016.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thulani Mbele/Sowetan/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">Cadre deployment</a> is one of the best-known policies of the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-apartheid-end">in 1994</a>. And many of the party’s woes over the past decade can be traced back to it. </p>
<p>The concept of “deployment” has a strong military association. Conventionally, it is about tactical deployment of troops or infrastructure during military operations. In this instance it is used to describe how the ANC places people in strategic positions at various levels of government.</p>
<p>“Cadre” refers to a dedicated, highly motivated and trained member of an organisation or party. Not all members of such an organisation are, therefore, cadres. During its years as an underground organisation when many of its members were in exile, the ANC used the term to describe members who were ideologically schooled in party thinking. The term is much more loosely applied today.</p>
<p>Cadre deployment is part of official ANC policy. It is applied at national, provincial and local level. </p>
<p>But there is growing <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2077-49072021000100015">discontent</a> in the country about it. Many blame it for the widespread corruption and mismanagement in government. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has gone to court to have the policy declared illegal and <a href="https://cdn.da.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/27130536/2.-Founding-Affidavit-Signed.pdf">against the constitution</a>. </p>
<p>It is unrealistic to argue that there should be no political involvement in important appointments in the public service. It happens in almost all political systems. Take, for example, the American president’s role in <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm">nominating all new judges of the Supreme Court</a>. The Senate must confirm these appointments, but the nomination process is a party political one. This is not regarded as unlawful or unconstitutional.</p>
<p>So why the deep concern about it in South Africa? Can the practice be reconciled with the democratic tradition?</p>
<h2>The problem with cadre deployment</h2>
<p>One of many components of any effective democracy is regular changes in government. Changes in which party governs a country are accompanied by changes in the top political appointments in the public service. This avoids party appointees becoming entrenched in their positions. </p>
<p>The problem for South Africa is that only one party has run the national government since 1994. It means that a rotation of senior officials with different political orientations has not happened. It also means that specific views and practices have become entrenched, and the procedural protection provided by checks and balances have become ineffective. Merit as a prerequisite for senior appointments was replaced by party loyalty. </p>
<p>More recently, the ANC is experiencing the public’s unhappiness with this state of affairs. It has already <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-council-turmoil-shows-south-africa-isnt-very-good-at-coalitions-128489">lost its majority in major cities</a> such as Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub; Tshwane, the seat of government; and Nelson Mandela Bay, in the Eastern Cape, the party’s historical stronghold.</p>
<p>Behind this loss of support are state capture, poor service delivery and a decline in state institutional capacity.</p>
<p>The common denominator in all of them is cadre deployment. </p>
<h2>The ANC and cadre deployment</h2>
<p>Cadre deployment as an ANC policy is used for two purposes. The first is to appoint its members to key public positions. The second is internally in the ANC, for members who move from one position to another. In the past, it used to be an honour for a member to claim that he or she was deployed as a cadre. That’s because it suggested that the member is disciplined, obeys the ANC’s instructions and is not motivated by personal interests. That honourable association with the policy has turned into a negative perception for the public in general. </p>
<p>Over the last two decades, the policy has increasingly come under attack for justifying the appointment of key people who are not necessarily qualified for their positions, and who even act in their own interests. Even in the case of qualified persons, their appointments happened under the cloud of privileged treatment and not a level playing field.</p>
<p>Cadre deployment has also become contentious within the ANC itself because of growing factionalism. This practice influences who are appointed as cabinet ministers and senior managers of state-owned enterprises and the public service.</p>
<p>Discontent with the way the policy has been implemented has led to some proposed changes. </p>
<p>In October 2022 the cabinet <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/remarks-acting-minister-public-service-and-administration-mr-tw-nxesi-cabinet-approval">adopted</a> the “National Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector”. It <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/cabinet-wants-ancs-cadre-deployment-policy-ditched-2022-10-27">agreed that</a></p>
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<p>the cadre deployment practices must be reconsidered for merit-based recruitment and selection in the public sector.</p>
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<p>Earlier, in August 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed legislation that prevents city managers and senior municipal officers from <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/parliament/depoliticising-municipalities-ramaphosa-signs-law-barring-municipal-managers-from-political-office-20220818">holding office in any political party</a>. </p>
<p>The two decisions are important steps in separating the powers of the political executive and the public service. Enforcement of this new principle will not be easy, but it sets an alternative for cadre deployment.</p>
<h2>Big challenges</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2018/20180713-gg41772_gen396-SCAPcomms-Rules.pdf">Zondo Commission</a>, which investigated corruption, fraud, maladministration and unethical conduct during former president Jacob Zuma’s administration, concluded that cadre deployment <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202206/electronic-state-capture-commission-report-part-vi-vol-ii.pdf">contributed towards state capture</a>.</p>
<p>This conclusion adds a judicial aspect to criticism of the policy, and also questions its moral justification.</p>
<p>The DA was motivated by the commission’s report to challenge cadre deployment in court. The party wants to have the policy declared unlawful and against the constitution. </p>
<p>The case is significant in many respects. </p>
<p>Firstly, it has created an opportunity for the DA to challenge the ANC on how it has structured the relationship between the party, government and state. The cadre deployment policy can show how the three became conflated at an early stage of the ANC’s tenure in power.</p>
<p>Abuse of cadre deployment, moreover, puts the ANC’s record of governance and service delivery in the spotlight. Given the policy, the ANC cannot claim that its bad governance record is primarily due to bad officials or individual problems. Cadre deployment means that the party has to take responsibility for the poor standard of governance – not just implicated individual officials. </p>
<p>This line of thinking has emerged as a contentious matter in the question of <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/opinion/eskoms-problems-primarily-due-to-failure-of-ancs-policies-%206e135683-9a9f-4be0-af4f-7d53fd651b2a">who should carry responsibility for the failures of the power utility, Eskom</a>.</p>
<p>Secondly, the court case gives the DA an opportunity to link cadre deployment to state capture in general, and the ANC’s abuse of government powers. This allows it to challenge the ruling party’s moral claim to be the main agent for transforming South Africa into a democratic and humane society. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the court case presents a serious predicament for the ANC. Many of its members joined the party because of the job opportunities that cadre deployment provides. If the ANC distances itself from the policy it will lose some of its attraction.</p>
<h2>The end of an era?</h2>
<p>It is very likely to lose momentum. The decline in support for the ANC suggests that coalition governments will become increasingly common in the country. It’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-stable-national-coalition-government-in-south-africa-possible-but-only-if-elites-put-countrys-interests-first-193828">possible that the ANC will have to share power</a> in the national sphere after the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/calendar2024.php">2024 general election</a>. Governing in coalitions will make it virtually impossible for cadre deployment to continue in its current form. </p>
<p>The implication of these changes in power relations is that cadre deployment in its ANC format will have to make way for a different relationship between the governing parties and senior public servants. </p>
<p>Instead of regular government rotations, the diversification of government in the form of coalitions will also serve as necessary checks and balances on the political-bureaucratic relations and transform cadre deployment into a more acceptable practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Kotze does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The decline in support for the ANC suggests that coalition governments will become increasingly common in the country, affecting its appointment policy.Dirk Kotze, Professor in Political Science, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959492022-12-07T14:39:13Z2022-12-07T14:39:13ZWhat is RET and what does it want? The Radical Economic Transformation faction in South Africa explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499500/original/file-20221207-3544-nqjswm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Loyalists of the ANC's Radical Economic Transformation (RET) at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been standard for some years, in any analysis of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), to refer to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-01-11-the-ret-faction-wants-total-control-of-everything-in-the-state-and-society-as-an-end-in-itself/">“radical economic transformation”</a> (RET) faction. Yet, there has been little serious analysis of what it is. </p>
<p>The RET is difficult to define. It has no clear shape, leadership, membership, rules or policies. It is rather an aggregation of the aggrieved and aspirant within the ANC, linked by a set of broadly shared attitudes towards the state and power. Nor, in conventional terms, is the faction particularly “radical”. The “economic transformation” it seeks is the displacement of white racial domination, rather than the overturn of capitalism.</p>
<p>Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and under President Cyril Ramaphosa, a constant constraint on his leadership and any effort to reform the economy and promote clean governance. For that reason, it needs to be understood.</p>
<h2>Growth and composition</h2>
<p>Its origins lie in the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/zuma-like-a-tsunami-wave-20050307">“tsunami wave”</a> which led to the defeat of Thabo Mbeki as ANC president <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">in 2007 by Jacob Zuma</a>, followed by Zuma’s elevation as state president in 2009. During Zuma’s presidency (<a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma-mr">9 May 2009 – 14 February 2018</a>), the RET faction overlapped heavily with his support base, which was drawn heavily from KwaZulu-Natal, his home province. Yet it was also closely aligned to ANC heavyweights in the other provinces, notably those dominated by the then <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/anc-suspensions-death-of-the-premier-league-9492a864-f3f0-4792-a94a-7c6a9080a0e6">“premier league”</a> – provincial premiers in three mainly rural provinces Mpumalanga, Free State and North West. Simultaneously it drew heavily on the support of black business lobbies doing business with the state, notably at provincial and local government levels. </p>
<p>By implication, the RET faction was often implicated in the corrupt practices referred to as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/state-capture-report-public-protector-14-october-2016">“state capture”</a>. Yet there was more to it than that. While various “Indian” business people who were tied to Zuma, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, were on the periphery of the RET, the faction itself was largely Africanist politically, protesting a continuation of white power under a veil of democracy.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/factionalism-and-corruption-could-kill-the-anc-unless-it-kills-both-first-116924">Factionalism and corruption could kill the ANC -- unless it kills both first</a>
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<p>The faction also drew energy from black professionals fighting against what they depicted as white domination of their professional spheres, and the radical black student lobbies which emerged during the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvmd84n8?turn_away=true">“RhodesMustFall”</a> and <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/south-africa-student-protests-explained/">“Fees must fall”</a> protest waves of the late Zuma period. </p>
<p>By the time of the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/anc54-breaking-ramaphosa-elected-anc-president-12453127">December 2017 ANC elective conference</a>, the RET faction was strongly anti-Cyril Ramaphosa and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-ramaphosas-victory-mean-for-south-africas-economy-89420">pro-Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma</a> in the race for the ANC presidency. The narrowness of Dlamini-Zuma’s defeat has provided it with a strong oppositional presence within the ANC during the Ramaphosa presidency, hampering his efforts at reform. </p>
<h2>Understanding the RET faction</h2>
<p>If it is difficult to pin down who belongs to the RET, it is equally difficult to define what they want. Nonetheless, four broad themes emerge.</p>
<p>First, the motive behind the faction seems to be black economic empowerment, but not the empowerment originally envisaged by Thabo Mbeki with its carefully regulated industrial charters <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40283176#metadata_info_tab_contents">and targets</a>. The RET version was a generalised insistence that the state machinery (government departments, provincial and local administrations, and state-owned enterprises) be leveraged to allocate contracts to black businesses. </p>
<p>This is justified by attacks upon <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-good-politics-bad-sociology-worse-economics-77338">“white monopoly capital”</a>, arguing that the South African economy has changed very little since democracy in 1994, and that white business is covertly determined upon maintaining white power. </p>
<p>The second thrust, closely related to the first, is a generalised attack on the constitutional settlement of 1994-96. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-wrong-to-blame-south-africas-woes-on-mandelas-compromises-96062">“Mandela compromise”</a> is criticised as having done little to ease the poverty and unemployment of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/economic-policy-remains-hotly-contested-in-south-africa-this-detailed-history-shows-why-138378">black population</a>.</p>
<p>The RET is highly ambivalent about the constitution’s defence of property rights but has little respect for the other laws, rules and regulations which the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a> puts in place. By implication, the judiciary is regarded as suspect, as its function is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">see that the constitution is enforced</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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<p>Third, an overlap with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which depicts itself as <a href="https://blackopinion.co.za/2019/12/30/the-effs-%EF%BB%BFmarxist-leninist-fanonist-thought-as-founded-by-mngxitama/">Marxist-Leninist-Fanonist</a>, sees the RET faction driving the call for the state to extend its right to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-31-expropriation-without-compensation-anc-eff-toenadering-on-state-land-custodianship-its-all-about-the-politics/">compulsory expropriation of land</a>. The impetus comes from the fact that, despite the government’s programme of land reform, a hugely disproportionate amount of land suitable for agriculture remains in <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201802/landauditreport13feb2018.pdf">white hands</a>. The faction, like the EFF, appears to admire the Zimbabwean land reforms of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725843.2022.2032591?journalCode=cafi20">early 2000s</a>, which saw mass expropriation of white farms, but rarely advocates this openly.</p>
<p>Fourth, the RET faction is a strong supporter of state enterprises. Although the faction would not object to the transfer of state enterprises into black hands, privatisation is feared as likely to result in acquisition of state businesses by white companies. </p>
<p>In any case, the RET faction is heavily embedded within the state owned enterprises. Their operatives allocate valuable contracts to black <a href="https://www.gov.za/tenderpreneurship-stuff-crooked-cadres-fighters">“tenderpreneurs”</a> – business people who feed on government contracts. By implication, it is opposed to all versions of “structural reform” touted by the Ramaphosa government and lobbies attached to “big business”.</p>
<h2>What the RET faction wants</h2>
<p>Trying to work out precisely what the RET faction wants is difficult because it has <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-ret-manifesto">no agreed manifesto</a>. However, three problems stand out:</p>
<p>First, it remains unclear what the RET faction would put in place of the existing constitution. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">The ANC insists it's still a political vanguard: this is what ails democracy in South Africa</a>
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<p>Should the constitution be reworked, and if so, how? What are the specific flaws in the constitution as it stands? For the moment, all we are left with are generalised attacks on the judiciary for individual judgements the RET dislikes, demands for changes of the expropriation clause in the constitution, and so on.</p>
<p>Second, the RET faction has no general plan for land reform. Crucially, it ignores the increasing domination of agriculture by <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-is-failing-ignoring-the-realities-of-rural-life-plays-a-part-190452">huge agri-businesses</a>.</p>
<p>These mega-firms are hugely complex operations. It is one thing to expropriate small white farms; quite another to engage in a battle with huge corporations which probably incorporate foreign as well as local ownership. And what would happen to food production if the state were to take them over?</p>
<p>Third, it is common knowledge that South Africa’s parastatals are failing. <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/news/investing/461772-eskoms-failure-in-four-charts.html">Eskom</a>, the power utility, can’t deliver enough electricity and is burdened by <a href="https://mg.co.za/business/2022-10-26-mtbs-government-to-take-a-chunk-of-eskoms-debt/">unpayable debt</a>. <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/transnet-decline-inside-business-big-battle-for-private-rail-20221129">Transnet</a>, the transport parastatal, is in chaos, unable to maintain infrastructure needed for business to operate efficiently. The public railway system is a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60202570">shambles</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-oldest-surviving-party-the-anc-has-an-achilles-heel-its-broken-branch-structure-150210">Africa's oldest surviving party – the ANC – has an Achilles heel: its broken branch structure</a>
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<p>South African Airways, the national airline, has collapsed financially and is being propped up by <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/the-days-of-bailouts-are-gone-saa-to-start-flying-ahead-of-takatso-deal-20210922">state funding</a>. The Post Office is <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2022-10-05-ag-highlights-sapo-mess-as-it-faces-collapse/">unable to deliver the post</a>. The reasons for these failures are many, ranging from the ANC’s systematic undervaluation of technical ability to run complex operations, its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">political deployment strategy</a>, and the mass looting of state bodies that took place <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-state-capture-commission-nears-its-end-after-four-years-was-it-worth-it-182898">under Zuma</a>. </p>
<p>Turnaround strategies have failed. The difficult question for the RET (and the ANC at large) is: if not privatisation, then what?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1895672022-08-30T13:44:25Z2022-08-30T13:44:25ZCorruption in South Africa: new book sets out how ruling ANC lost the battle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481758/original/file-20220830-8742-ye9g6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ANC supporters show support for corruption accused and suspended party secretary general Ace Magashule outside court in Bleomfontein.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Conrad Bornman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the greatest benefits of South Africa’s democracy is freedom of speech and publication. Mpumelelo Mkhabela’s book, <a href="https://www.nb.co.za/en/view-book/?id=9780624091226">The Enemy Within</a>, is the latest in a cascade of publications over the last decade that record corruption and theft by leading politicians in the country’s ruling party.</p>
<p>In all too many countries in Africa and Asia a book like this would result in its author’s detention, censorship of the book, persecution of the publishers and printers, and harassment of bookshops that sold it. </p>
<p>South Africa is among a select group of democracies that permit such exposés. Books that have explored the deepening levels of corruption in the country include <a href="https://www.scribd.com/book/377308470/How-to-Steal-a-City-The-Battle-for-Nelson-Mandela-Bay-an-Inside-Account">How to Steal a City</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Steal-Country-Capture-Future/dp/1785903616">How to Steal a Country</a>, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/gangster-state-unravelling-ace-magashule%E2%80%99s-web-capture/9781776093748">Gangster State</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-Party-Corruption-Africas-Uncertain/dp/1844676277">After the Party</a>. </p>
<p>The Enemy Within takes readers through a series of well-publicised corruption scandals. It argues that the African National Congress (ANC) lost the fight against corruption by tolerating corrupt practices, failing to hold the corrupt to account, and going as far as to shield them. The ANC has governed South Africa since the formal end of apartheid in 1994.</p>
<h2>Corruption scandals</h2>
<p>Mkhabela, a former newspaper editor, considers the ANC’s first big test of ethics – which it failed – was in 1996 when it expelled cabinet minister <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02426/05lv02516.htm">Bantu Holomisa</a> from the party. The reason was that he’d stated publicly that ANC cabinet minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stella-margaret-nomzamo-sigcau">Stella Sigcau</a> had earlier in her career accepted a bribe.</p>
<p>The book then goes through other prominent cases of corruption. The scandals include the looting of VBS mutual bank, which involved “theft, abuse of power, robbing of the elderly, and even murder” (four members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union were killed). (p.41)</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whistleblowers-in-south-africa-have-some-protection-but-gaps-need-fixing-183992">Whistleblowers in South Africa have some protection but gaps need fixing</a>
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<p>There was the rare imprisonment of an ANC MP – Tony Yengeni, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/20/rorycarroll">in 2003</a>, for fraud and corruption. There was also the theft of public funds intended for a memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Then came the procurement by transport parastatal Transnet of locomotives that were too tall to be used on most of the country’s railway lines.</p>
<p>Jacob Zuma, then president, dismantled the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301275880_Countering_corruption_in_South_Africa_The_rise_and_fall_of_the_Scorpions_and_Hawks">Scorpions</a> police unit, which specialised in priority crimes. Public funds were misused for his private residence. The company <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bosasa-group">Bosasa</a> allegedly greased the palms of ANC politicians in return for huge contracts with the prisons department. After a wave of Zuma appointments to the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/">National Prosecuting Authority</a>, the book says, the authority</p>
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<p>was clearly dancing to the tune of top ANC politicians. (p.123) </p>
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<p>The case of Jackie Selebi, the erstwhile head of police, shows two ANC failings. Mkhabela reminds readers of the lack of condemnation from the ANC when Selebi was convicted of corruption <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/africa/jackie-selebi-south-african-police-head-convicted-in-corruption-case-dies-at-64.html">in 2010</a>.</p>
<p>To this I would add a second point about cadre deployment: Selebi had no training or on the job experience in policing. Had he been kept in diplomatic postings, scandals would almost certainly never had occurred. </p>
<p>The ANC appears blind to this obvious point.</p>
<p>The robbing of funds for a Mandela memorial service reveals another surprising truth. These municipal funds had initially been earmarked to subsidise poor families (p.74) who could not afford municipal services such as water and electricity. </p>
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<p>Most politicians would consider that invaluable for their subsequent electioneering. But politicians diverted or stole the funds. In short, so extreme was their personal greed that it even undermined their efficacy as politicians.</p>
<p>In summarising widespread corporate collusion with corruption, Mkhabela notes that companies hide bribes under the “cost of business” item in their balance sheets. (p.63) </p>
<p>Then there is the pattern of assassinations. </p>
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<p>Anyone who threatens to expose tender corruption risks being eliminated by hired hitmen. In some instances, once caught and convicted, the hitmen are even looked after in prison (p.67)</p>
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<h2>ANC leaders</h2>
<p>South Africa had</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a toxic mix of old money, businessmen eager to win favours from politicians, and political leaders ready to tackle anyone who dared make corruption claims against the party. (p.21)</p>
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<p>None of the ANC’s leaders have behaved well. Even Nelson Mandela, who pressed for the dismissal of Holomisa and asked the leader of the South African Communist Party, Jeremy Cronin, to write a leaflet denigrating him. </p>
<p>Mkhabela notes that Thabo Mbeki, as president, was conflicted: he deplored corruption. But he regarded every exposé as a white racist attack. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-in-south-africa-is-deeply-rooted-in-the-countrys-past-and-why-that-matters-144973">How corruption in South Africa is deeply rooted in the country’s past and why that matters</a>
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<p>Mbeki signed up South Africa to the <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA18172733_182">Southern African Development Community Protocol against Corruption</a>, the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/brussels/UN_Convention_Against_Corruption.pdf">UN Convention against Corruption</a>, and the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/corruption/oecdantibriberyconvention.htm">OECD Anti-Bribery Convention</a>. </p>
<p>Also to his credit, Mbeki set up autonomous institutions against corruption that survived his own efforts to undermine them. It would require major exertions on the part of Zuma, who succeeded Mbeki as president, to dismantle them. (p.55)</p>
<p>Zuma had to emasculate the prosecution authority to avoid being prosecuted himself; he had to undermine the South African Revenue Service to prevent being sued for unpaid tax. These allowed a host of the corrupt to capture the state.</p>
<p>The rebuilding of these institutions has taken the whole of Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency to date.</p>
<p>But Mkhabela misses one pertinent point. Mbeki oversaw massive pay rises for the top posts in politics, the bureaucracy including the municipalities, and the parastatals. This hugely raised the stakes in ANC political battles. Mbeki never reproached Smuts Ngonyama, then the ANC’s spokesperson, for his widely quoted comment</p>
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<p>I did not struggle (in the liberation movement) to be poor.</p>
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<p>In his conclusions Mkhabela says:</p>
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<p>The incentives and rewards for being corrupt for the politically connected far outweigh the risks of being caught in the act. (p.198) </p>
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<p>But he ends by noting that corruption generates pushback from the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress,. but writes this review in his professional capacity as political scientist.</span></em></p>To his credit, former South African president Thabo Mbeki set up anti-corruption institutions that survived his own efforts to erode them.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877062022-08-28T08:06:40Z2022-08-28T08:06:40ZSouth Africa has a plan to make its public service professional. It’s time to act on it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480412/original/file-20220822-76834-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa made the creation of a capable, ethical public service a primary focus when he came to power in 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A professional, efficient and effective public service is key to a government’s ability to deliver on its mandate. That’s why <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">South Africa’s constitution</a> requires that the public service be institutionalised as a profession. Appointments must be based on merit and public servants are supposed to be honest, neutral and fair. </p>
<p>Such a public service is a distinctive feature of modern democracy. It means the government bureaucracy is not tied to an incumbent political party. It remains in place no matter which party is in power, and is non-partisan. Administration can continue when political power changes hands.</p>
<p>A professional public service optimises state efficiency by embracing meritocracy. </p>
<p>This means employing only the brightest, best qualified and most competent personnel, with a strong ethical orientation. It requires that civil servants perform their duties with diligence, care and empathy.</p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-10.pdf">constitution</a> is emphatic about this. It even establishes the Public Service Commission as the custodian of professionalism. </p>
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<p>There shall be an efficient, non-partisan, career-oriented public service broadly representative of the South African community functioning on a basis of fairness and which shall serve all members of the public in an unbiased and impartial manner…</p>
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<p>Almost 30 years into democracy, the country hasn’t got there yet. </p>
<p>Two key initiatives to build state capability through professionalisation of the public service are under way. One is the <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Bills/2021/B16_2021_Public_Administration_Laws_General_Amendment_Bill/B16_2021_Public_Administration_Laws_General_Amendment_Bill.pdf">Public Service Act Amendment Bill</a>, which is before parliament. The other is the draft <a href="http://www.psc.gov.za/documents/reports/2015/PUBLIC_SERVICE_COMMISSION_AMENDMENT_BILL.pdf">Public Service Commission Bill</a>, which is yet to be tabled.</p>
<p>The Public Service Amendment Bill devolves administrative powers to the directors-general, who are the heads of government departments. The powers apply to the human resources management and organisation of their departments. The bill aligns these powers with the directors-general’s financial responsibilities outlined in the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/legislation/pfma/act.pdf">Public Finance Management Act</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-rationalisation-public-administration-replacement-laws#:%7E:text=The%20Public%20Service%20Act%2C%201994,service%2C%20and%20matters%20connected%20therewith.">Public Service Act</a>, which this bill seeks to amend, assigns the administrative powers to the ministers. Yet the Public Finance Management Act places the management of public finances on the directors-general. </p>
<p>These contradictions <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589340701715505">cause conflicts</a> between ministers and directors-general. The bill seeks to end these. </p>
<p>The Public Service Commission Bill extends the commission’s mandate to cover local government as well as national and provincial public entities <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/legislation/pfma/public%20entities/2019-05-24%20Public%20institutions%20Sch%201-3D.pdf">covered by the Public Finance Management Act</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fixing-local-government-in-south-africa-needs-political-solutions-not-technical-ones-161004">Fixing local government in South Africa needs political solutions, not technical ones</a>
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<p>These bills are long overdue. They will give effect to a <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-implementation-framework-towards-professionalisation-public-service-comments">framework</a> that was gazetted in 2020 for public comment, and has benefited from wide consultation.</p>
<p>The framework should not be allowed to fall away. It seeks to follow through with the intentions of the constitution and the 2012 <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a>. The plan is the country’s long-range blueprint for socioeconomic transformation.</p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>At the end of apartheid in 1994, the public service was bloated and inefficient. The bureaucracy had to be dismantled to mirror the country’s demographics. That basically meant appointing more black people to key positions. </p>
<p>This was also important to avoid the sabotage of the democratic project by apartheid-era officialdom, which the governing African National Congress (ANC) <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0020852310381204">inherited</a>.</p>
<p>But the need to transform was misapplied in a way that hampered efforts to make professionalism and meritocracy the guiding norms for a career public service. Without them, transformation became insidious. This was especially so during former president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="http://47zhcvti0ul2ftip9rxo9fj9.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Betrayal-of-the-Promise-25052017.pdf">state capture era</a> <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">(May 2009-February 2018)</a>. </p>
<p>In practice, the terms of directors-general, who are the administrative heads of government departments, are tied to those of ministers, who are their political heads. The bureaucrats are almost always replaced when a new minister is appointed or if there are <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/breaking-human-settlements-dg-to-be-transferred-following-mediation-process-with-minister-20220611">conflicts between them</a>. </p>
<p>This is one reason for the high turnover of directors-general – <a href="https://www.nationalplanningcommission.org.za/assets/Documents/NDP%20REVIEW.pdf#page=55">between 24 and 48 months</a>. Institutional memory is lost and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/archives/citypress/the-high-cost-of-revolving-dg-syndrome-20150430">state capacity weakened</a>. </p>
<p>Despite all this, the post-apartheid state has spawned pockets of excellence in institutional capability. Key among these is the South African Revenue Service. Its success at professionalisation, as evidenced by regularly beating revenue collection targets, became a <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2022-07-06-sars-compliance-and-the-lost-opportunity-to-build-trust/">Harvard University case study</a>. It was also <a href="https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/epdf/10.1596/978-1-4648-0768-8">cited by the World Bank</a> for its lessons on institutional reforms and public sector governance. </p>
<p>The agency attracted top talent. Professionalism and integrity became the fundamentals of its institution. This was possible as it was given autonomy from the public sector bargaining forum. It could negotiate wages with employees directly.</p>
<p>Its successes were not used as a model for the entire public service, though. Instead, the agency was <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/sites/default/files/SARS%20Commission%20Final%20Report.pdf">nearly run down</a> during Zuma’s tenure. It is in the process of <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-eroded-institutions-in-south-africa-how-the-revenue-service-is-rebuilding-itself-187891">being rebuilt</a>.</p>
<p>In 2012, the government adopted the <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a>. It underscored the need to make the public service professional.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-fix-south-africas-dysfunctional-state-ditch-its-colonial-heritage-99087">To fix South Africa's dysfunctional state, ditch its colonial heritage</a>
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<p>In 2014, the constitution’s prescription of the values and principles governing public administration were written into legislation – the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201501/38374gon1054act11of2014.pdf">Public Administration Management Act</a>. </p>
<p>The Public Service Act Amendment Bill and the Public Service Commission Bill are key to giving effect to the government’s efforts to <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-implementation-framework-towards-professionalisation-public-service-comments">institutionalise professionalisation of the public service</a>. </p>
<p>These critically important interventions are yet to be concluded and signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa. </p>
<h2>Building state capacity</h2>
<p>Reeling from the aftermath of COVID, coupled with the energy crisis, and amid the surging socioeconomic challenges of <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=12075">poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/Media%20release%20QLFS%20Q2%202022.pdf">unemployment</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">inequality</a>, it has never been more urgent to build state capacity.</p>
<p>The amendment bills need to be expedited. They are important to put the national framework in place for the professionalisation of the public service. Some of the framework’s proposals do not require legislative amendments, new policies, regulations, or ministerial directives. </p>
<p>Of critical importance, the framework proposes ditching <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">deployment practices</a> – placing party loyalists in key government positions. These practices served their purpose in the earlier days of democracy.</p>
<p>As the late anti-apartheid activist and economist Ben Turok <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-25-public-servants-should-be-employed-not-deployed/">said</a>:</p>
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<p>public servants should be employed, not deployed… they should have security of tenure, and… the public service should be independent and not subject to the whims of individual politicians.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule receives funding from National Research Foundation. He is a member of the National Planning Commission</span></em></p>Almost 30 years into democracy, South Africa still hasn’t ensured the jobs of senior public servants are not tied to the tenure of government ministers.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1760682022-02-01T14:21:11Z2022-02-01T14:21:11ZSouth Africa is in a state of drift: the danger is that the ANC turns the way of Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443502/original/file-20220131-125257-1x63ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (left) with his Zimbabwean counterpart, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, in Harare in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dirco/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dismal <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/dynamics-of-the-zimbabwe-crisis-in-the-21st-century/">fate of Zimbabwe</a> under the stewardship of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (<a href="https://www.zanupf.org.zw/">Zanu-PF</a>) government has long stood out as a warning to South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (<a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">ANC</a>). Yet rarely has South Africa been in more danger of launching into a trajectory of Zimbabwe-like decline than now. </p>
<p>The South Africa media is thoroughly consumed with the political crisis within the ANC: the <a href="https://theconversation.com/factionalism-and-corruption-could-kill-the-anc-unless-it-kills-both-first-116924">rampant factionalism</a>, the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_south-africas-president-says-anc-cleaning-corruption/6209485.html">massive corruption</a>, the ‘capture’ of the state by the practice of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">‘cadre deployment’</a>, and the resulting <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-voters-are-disillusioned-but-they-havent-found-an-alternative-to-the-anc-171239">decline in the party’s poll ratings</a>.</p>
<p>There are genuine fears (or hopes) that the party will lose its electoral majority at the next general election <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-01-03-the-anc-renewal-boat-has-sailed-so-who-will-rise-and-take-up-the-political-baton-in-the-2024-elections/">in 2024</a>.</p>
<p>From this follows the most fundamental question of all: if the ANC lost its majority at the next election, as Zanu-PF did in the parliamentary and presidential elections of <a href="https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=929b38cb-3d7e-86c4-70da-e9ed343cc38d&groupId=252038">2008</a>, would it democratically concede power?</p>
<p>Or, alternatively, would it thwart the popular will by systematically undermining any post-election coalition government, as Zanu-PF did when it entered a coalition with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/zanu-pf-draft-constitution-angers-mdc-20120824">in 2009</a>? It refused to give up presidential power, and clung on to all the key levers of state power. It subsequently rigged the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000203971304800305">2013 general election</a>.</p>
<p>What prompts such thinking is the apparent dilemma confronted by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is also the ANC president. He positioned himself as the candidate who would <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-sets-out-a-bold-vision-for-south-africa-but-can-he-pull-it-off-109784">reform the ANC</a>. He also pledged to clean up the <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">mess of corruption left behind by the Zuma presidency</a>, and set South Africa back on <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2018-state-nation-address-16-feb-2018-0000">the path of growth</a>. </p>
<p>But for all the talk, Ramaphosa has made little progress. He appears to be totally paralysed by an inability to resolve the battle between factions within the ANC. He apparently lacks the authority to control his Cabinet. And <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/adriaanbasson/adriaan-basson-analysis-paralysis-why-hasnt-ramaphosa-fired-sisulu-20220123">the will to do so</a>.</p>
<p>So long as this continues, the country remains in a state of drift. The <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/Presentation%20QLFS%20Q2_2021.pdf">level of unemployment</a> is shocking, the <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-10-06/Report-03-10-062015.pdf#page=69">extent of poverty</a> among the black population is appalling, and the prospects for meaningful and appropriate economic growth <a href="https://www.resbank.co.za/content/dam/sarb/publications/statements/monetary-policy-statements/2022/statement-of-the-monetary-policy-committee/Monetary%20Policy%20Committee%20Statement%20January%202022.pdf">are minimal</a>. No wonder so many fear that South Africa is embarked upon a <a href="https://www.biznews.com/good-hope-project/2020/03/09/brains-wired-sa-zimbabwe-wrong-neurologist">Zimbabwean-style decline</a> into a basket-case economy run by a liberation movement autocracy.</p>
<h2>Three key features of liberation movements</h2>
<p>Highlighting three key features of liberation movement rule – such as that by Zanu-PF and the ANC – help us to understand the present crisis in South Africa.</p>
<p>First, liberation movements are characterised by simultaneous <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781847011343/liberation-movements-in-power/">democratic and authoritarian impulses</a>. Their claim to having liberated their countries from colonial oppression has much merit. This is true if they are reluctant to share this with other forces which participated in the struggle for freedom.</p>
<p>Furthermore, their present claim to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">representative of ‘the people’ </a> ensures that they cannot completely ignore the needs of their supporters. </p>
<p>On the other hand, they have a long history of authoritarianism. </p>
<p>Although they tolerated internal dissent during the freedom struggle, they also quelled it at times <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/DC/slapr93.3/slapr93.3.pdf">with brutal violence</a>. After the arrival of democracy, they have systematically suppressed rivals or allies with a legitimate claim to having contributed to the struggle for liberation. </p>
<p>The Zimbabwe African People’s Union, led by Zimbabwean liberation struggle hero Joshua Nkomo, was bruised and beaten until it agreed to merge itself into Zanu-PF <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-liberators-turn-into-oppressors-a-study-of-southern-african-states-57213">in 1987</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>, the effective internal wing of the ANC during the latter years of apartheid, dissolved itself following heavy pressure to do so by the ANC <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/united-democratic-front-udf-dissolved">in 1991</a>.</p>
<p>Both Zanu-PF and the ANC tolerate opposition parties. But they systematically seek to delegitimise them by characterising them as ‘counter-revolutionary or <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-05-13-chasing-butterflies-and-bogeymen-mantashe-beats-regime-change-drum/">agents of foreign powers</a>.</p>
<p>Second, the liberation movements have become the vehicles for <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">rapid class-formation</a>. Although they won political power, they inherited only limited economic power, as the commanding heights of their economies remain in private hands. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, by gaining control over the state, Zanu-PF and the ANC secured control over the state owned enterprises. In South Africa, these accounted for around 15% of GDP <a href="https://repository.hsrc.ac.za/handle/20.500.11910/6219">in the early 1990s</a>. </p>
<p>Initially, their principal focus was on removing old-guard public servants, whose loyalty to a democratic government could not be assumed, and replacing them with party loyalists who could be trusted. </p>
<p>This resulted in the merging of party and state, weakening the independence of bodies of accountability established under their respective constitutions. </p>
<p>And, justified on the basis of pursuing the revolution, efforts were made in both countries to ‘capture’ the commanding heights of the economy. This was achieved fully <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781847011343/liberation-movements-in-power/">in Zimbabwe</a>, but only partially in South Africa. The process was easily perverted into lining the pockets of an <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781847011343/liberation-movements-in-power/">increasingly predatory party-state bourgeoisie</a>. This, as Zanu-PF’s and the ANC’s control of the public service, including the parastatals, enabled them to allocate high paid jobs, tenders and procurement contracts to cronies.</p>
<p>Third, there is a constant tension between liberation movements’ commitment to the liberal constitutionalism by which they acceded to power and their aspirations to monopoly domination of society. </p>
<p>The liberation movements regard themselves as the historic embodiments of the aspirations of ‘the people’. Their logic is that those who are not for them are against them. Constitutional restraints on the exercise of power by the state are weakened or ignored. Above all, other political parties or organs of civil society which make claims to represent the popular will are dismissed as counter-revolutionary. The popular will cannot be shared.</p>
<p>These (and other) liberation movement dynamics lead inexorably to democratic and economic decline. If liberation movements are the historic embodiments of freedom, then restraints on their power must constitute unfreedom. Similarly, extension of liberation movement control over the economy must by definition constitute the furtherance of the revolution. </p>
<p>Yet such thinking allows little scope for private participation in the economy – unless it is closely aligned with the interests of the ruling party. It allows even less for popular participation in the political arena – unless it takes place under the umbrella of those who rule.</p>
<h2>Leaving the political stage</h2>
<p>These dynamics explain why Ramaphosa’s reform agenda has fallen foul of a political paralysis gripping the ANC and the wider arena of politics in South Africa. </p>
<p>The ANC retains its determination to rule yet lacks the capacity to do so effectively. The only way out of the dilemma is its defeat in an election. </p>
<p>However, as the 2008 Zimbabwean example has shown, defeat of a liberation movement in an election does not guarantee its removal from power, so long as it retains the support of the military, police and security services. </p>
<p>Perhaps South Africa could prove different. The military <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-mulls-future-of-its-military-to-make-it-fit-for-purpose-146423">has been run down</a>, and the police and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-abuse-of-south-africas-spy-agency-underscores-need-for-strong-civilian-oversight-154439">security services</a> are themselves <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-06-battle-lines-have-been-drawn-between-saps-factions-and-we-are-the-casualties/">heavily factionalised</a>. However, this assumes that there is an opposition party or coalition capable of displacing the ANC electorally. And that this would be backed up by a level of popular and civil society support which would be ready and willing to combat any attempt to steal an election.</p>
<p>The liberation movements have fulfilled their historic task. Compelling them to leave the political stage is a daunting but necessary agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall has previously received funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The ANC retains its determination to rule yet lacks the capacity to do so effectively. The only way out of the dilemma is its defeat in an election.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745932022-01-08T19:27:16Z2022-01-08T19:27:16ZRamaphosa’s ANC birthday speech fails to inspire disillusioned South Africans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439884/original/file-20220108-33626-102gp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African and African National Congress party's President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during the ANC's 110th anniversary celebrations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Phill Magakoe /AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The spectators to the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2022-01-08-watch-110-years-of-the-anc-president-cyril-ramaphosa-delivers-january-8-statement/">110th anniversary celebrations</a> of the African National Congress (ANC’s), South Africa’s governing party, looked bored. The dancers roped in to entertain its dwindling faithful were lackluster. Indeed, even during the singing of the national anthem, some in the audience could not even be bothered to stand up. </p>
<p>Then a tired-looking President Cyril Ramaphosa provided an unconvincing statement focusing on unity, renewal and defending democratic gains to an already skeptical South African public. </p>
<p>If ever one needed a reason to ditch the ANC, this <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/statement-of-the-national-executive-committee-on-the-occasion-of-the-110th-anniversary-of-the-anc-2022/">January 8 statement</a>, which sets out the party’s agenda for the year, was it. It deliberately misdiagnosed the problems confronting the country, it provided no new vision and therefore little hope to the long-suffering citizens. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa admitted that the National Executive Committee (NEC) had gone through 15 drafts of the statement before he delivered it. It was still dismal, highlighting the intellectual deficit in the ANC’s highest decision-making body in between its five-yearly national conferences.</p>
<p>To exacerbate matters, the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/live-feed-january-8-statement-anc-celebrates-110th-anniversary-aff75a42-b1ce-4566-a4d1-1d06bc6aac91">speech</a> seemed to be tailored more to the 1960s than to 2021. It was replete with references to counter revolutionary forces, revolutionary discipline, democratic centralism and the developmental state. None of these leftist slogans, however, offer any tangible solutions for the deep political, economical and social malaise afflicting the country.</p>
<p>Consider here the case of the developmental state, the centre piece of which are the country’s parastatals. But not a single one can turn a profit and all seem to be in terminal decline. </p>
<p>This is a state which is battling to fill potholes, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-revolting-against-inept-local-government-why-it-matters-155483">get drinkable water into residents’ taps</a>, keep the lights on, and cannot run an airline or keep trains on <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-20-what-broke-south-african-rail-and-can-it-be-fixed/">track</a>. When is the ANC going to acknowledge that South Africa will be better off privatising the lot of them? </p>
<p>Ramaphosa even acknowledged that a capable state needs an effective public service. But, this begs the question: why does he not start with his own cabinet? There is so much of <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2021-07-21-time-to-chop-deadwood-in-the-cabinet-mr-president/">deadwood</a> around the table. Why not get rid of the incompetents as opposed to recycling them into new portfolios?</p>
<h2>Cold comfort</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa offered citizens leftist political rhetoric as opposed to any concrete plan of action. He provided cold comfort to South Africans who bothered to tune into the proceedings.</p>
<p>The misdiagnosis of the challenges confronting the country was deliberate in that it attempted to exonerate the party of misgovernance. Consider the case of the sluggish economy.</p>
<p>Much of the blame here was laid at the door of the Covid-19 pandemic. The truth is that the economy was already in trouble before the March 2020 lockdown. Much of the reason for the economic evisceration of large numbers of South Africans is precisely because of the ineptitude displayed by ANC deployees in government and its anti-growth policies.</p>
<p>Instead, Ramaphosa refered to the R350 (US$22.45) <a href="https://www.gov.za/services/social-benefits/social-relief-distress">Covid-19 relief grant</a> the ANC has initiated. According to him it lifted 5 million people above the food poverty line. One would expect that as a businessman Ramaphosa would realise that it is hardly sustainable for the majority of South Africans to receive social grants in the midst of a dwindling <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/462062/south-africas-shrinking-tax-base-piles-pressure-on-sars/">tax base</a>.</p>
<p>The emigration of skilled professionals is merely one result of the average South African taxpayer who, despite increasingly carrying a disproportionate tax burden, does not receive much in the way of services. </p>
<p>What is desperately needed for the higher growth path the President articulated is the adoption and urgent implementation of pro-investor and pro-business policies. </p>
<p>This the ANC has been loath to do. And so, the economic malaise continues.</p>
<h2>Safety and security</h2>
<p>On security, Ramaphosa acknowledged that stability was undermined by the July 2021 <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/07/21/explainer-what-caused-south-africa-s-week-of-rioting/">riots</a> that followed the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma. But, there was no acknowledgement that the riots were the result of the factionalism he referred to which is tearing up the ANC and the country.</p>
<p>If anything, the July riots showed the big lie in the January statement that South Africa needs the ANC to realise a stable and prosperous country providing a better life for all. To be frank, for South Africa to survive, the ANC needs to die. </p>
<p>As commander-in-chief, ultimately the July riots are on Ramaphosa himself. He was the one sitting on the High Level Review <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/analysis/explainer-what-the-2018-high-level-panel-report-into-ssa-found-and-what-was-done-20210202">Report</a> on the security services pointing to their politicisation and criminalisation. </p>
<p>The panel, chaired by academic <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/media-statement-jsci-welcomes-relocation-ssa-presidency-and-appointment-dr-sydney-mufamadi-national-security-advisor">Sydney Mufamadi</a>, completed its work in December 2018. But its recommendations were not really implemented and for that the dithering President needs to take the blame. Neither has he acted on the stand-off between the Police Minister and his National Police Commissioner which has paralysed the <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2021-07-06-feud-between-cele-and-sitole-undermines-crime-fighting/">police</a>.</p>
<h2>Social front</h2>
<p>On the social front, Ramaphosa was correct to lay emphasis on gender based violence. But here again, the facts on the ground paint a dismal picture of incompetence. Over 76% of police stations do not have a <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2021/02/19/cele-denies-there-was-a-shortage-of-rape-kits-at-police-stations-last-year">rape kit</a>.</p>
<p>The president touted the <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/index.php/2021/05/10/what-is-the-district-development-model/">district development model</a> as the panacea for the ills of local government. This was first touted ten years ago but <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2021/10/13/failure-of-govt-s-district-development-model-blamed-on-anc-infighting">experts</a> have already acknowledged its failure to make good on its promise of service delivery on account of ANC factionalism and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">cadre deployment</a>. </p>
<p>The ANC has largely deployed people on the basis of party loyalty as opposed to the requisite skill sets to staff parastatals and various government departments. <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2952688/anc-cadre-deployment-minutes-made-public-6-january-2022/">Minutes</a> of the ANC’s own cadre deployment committee show that in some cases, candidates applied directly to the ANC as opposed to the government department advertising the vacancy. The committee oversees the ANC’s policy of appointing members and sympathisers to key government positions.</p>
<p>As chair of the ANC’s deployment committee (when he was the deputy president of the ANC) Ramaphosa is equally responsible for the current state of affairs in the country. This includes the mounting evidence of corruption and state capture, most recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-report-chronicles-extent-of-corruption-in-south-africa-but-will-action-follow-174441">set out explicitly</a> in the first report from the Zondo commission of inquiry.</p>
<h2>Foreign policy</h2>
<p>On the foreign policy front, the ANC statement demonstrated why South Africa finds itself in such a weakened position in Africa and globally. </p>
<p>There was the expression of solidarity with Cuba – the usual sop to the ANC’s <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">tripartite allies</a> the South African Communist Party and labour federation Cosatu.</p>
<p>There was also the traditional denunciation of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands as well as standing firmly with the Polisario Front in the quest for an independent Saharawi Republic. </p>
<p>These populist positions hardly reflect the reality. In Cuba, the Castro era has already drawn to a close with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/17/cuban-opposition-group-calls-for-more-protests-denounces-arrests">protesting Cubans</a> looking forward to their own New Dawn.</p>
<p>As for the Israeli-Palestinian question, there are tectonic shifts taking place across the Middle East represented by the <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/abraham-accords-one-year-later-assessing-impact-and-what-lies-ahead">Abraham Accords</a> and Israel forging ever closer ties with an increasing number of Arab – as well as African – states. </p>
<p>Finally, there is the issue of an independent Saharawi Republic. Given recent <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/1/31/morocco-rejoins-the-african-union-after-33-years">developments</a>, the realistic option would be for the Polisario Front to accept Morocco’s offer of greater autonomy.</p>
<p>In the final instance, South Africans are led by a dithering president at the helm of an inept political party which has already passed its sell by date.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hussein Solomon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africans are led by a dithering president at the helm of an inept political party which has already passed its sell by date.Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor and Academic Head of Department: Political Studies and Governance, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1718302021-11-25T14:33:00Z2021-11-25T14:33:00ZNew book on South Africa’s history puts black people at the centre, for a change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433151/original/file-20211122-13-1ufvxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, former South African President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela after signing a peace pledge ahead of the first democratic elections in 1994.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keith Schamotta/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thula Simpson’s new <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/thula-simpson-history-of-south-africa/cpbl-7180-g030?referrer=googlemerchant&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkNiMBhCxARIsAIDDKNUU7XlVLrUqPmgkQdKsNe1ZHc3EloPMUPMN9stKope-Ofx6kCBjnMIaAv-MEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds">book</a>, History of South Africa from 1902 to the Present, is an event-packed narrative history. It is reminiscent of the style of Eric Walker’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Southern-Africa-Walker/dp/B0028A9JIE">History of Southern Africa</a> eight decades ago – a very influential book, prescribed for many university history classes – except this time black South Africans are central to the story, not confined to its margins.</p>
<p>The author, <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/historical-heritage-studies/article/2353404/prof-thula-simpson">an associate professor</a> at the University of Pretoria, most recently published the book, <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/thula-simpson-umkhonto-we-sizwe/mmhj-3406-g720?referrer=googlemerchant&gclid=CjwKCAiAnO2MBhApEiwA8q0HYXLl7yeiRyOOyRove8-Y1Hz7bkQHygZnWsKo7u-6FLsArWOs6kf9UxoCytgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle</a>, in 2016. This was also written in an event-by-event narrative style.</p>
<p>The author’s choice of 1902 as his starting point is presumably because from then on South Africa was under one political ruler – first, the British imperial government; then white settlers; and since 1994, majoritarian democratic rule. The trade-off for dense detail of twentieth century is that the reader forgoes older periods that haven’t received much attention.</p>
<p>A wealth of archaeological research has breathed life into thousand year old trade routes, and the <a href="https://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/bokoni-mpumalanga">Bokoni</a>, a pre-colonial mixed farming society, from the 1500s and other forgotten kingdoms and chiefdoms.</p>
<p>This history covers twelve decades, from the surrender of Boer guerrillas in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/second-anglo-boer-war-1899-1902">Second Anglo-Boer War</a> in 1902 to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-social-unrest-in-south-africa-and-what-might-be-done-about-it-166130">July 2021 looting spree</a> in two of South Africa’s provinces. Usefully, this history provides the results of every election since 1910. As the publisher’s blurb states,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the book follows the South African people through the battles, elections, repression, resistance, strikes, insurrections, massacres, economic crashes and health crises that have shaped the nation’s character.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This book is new scholarship, which fills a gap with the release of new documents.</p>
<p>This history traces that as far back as the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/paris-peace">Versailles peace conference of 1919</a>, to settle the post - World War 1 arrangements. Rival delegations to the conference came from the South African Native National Congress (today South Africa’s governing ANC) and JBM Hertzog’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">Nasionale Party</a>, to lobby for opposite causes. Both lobbied in vain the British Prime Minister Lloyd George: the one for an Afrikaner republic; the other to defend the Cape franchise for blacks.</p>
<h2>Capturing history</h2>
<p>This historical narrative covers the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-bulhoek-massacre">Bulhoek massacre</a> in 1921, about a church stand to keep their meeting ground, but ignores the <a href="https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/40685?ln=en">1922 Bondelzwart rebellion</a> against the South African Government imposing a sixfold increase in their effective taxes. </p>
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<p>It covers the crushing of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rand-rebellion-1922">1922 Rand revolt</a> against hiring African miners instead of higher paid white miners, and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40206586">Pact government’s legislative victory</a> for the defeated white mine workers. The Pact government was constituted by an Afrikaner majority, with support from English-speaking white mineworkers. This was about firing black workers in skilled jobs. It also reminds one of the statutory anti-Semitism of the 1930 <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/28071/08chapter8.pdf?sequence=9&isAllowed=y">Quota Act</a>, which dramatically blocked Jewish refugees’ emigration to South Africa, as did the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201503/act-53-1986.pdf">Aliens Act of 1937</a>. </p>
<p>This book is a good reminder that, notwithstanding Prime Minister Jan Smuts’ “segregation has fallen on evil days” speech in 1942, (p.131), his government subsequently repealed not one segregation law. But, to the contrary, it added to segregation laws against Indians, while a parliamentary Marriage Commission proposed in 1939 a ban on interracial marriages (p.162). This was immediately implemented by the apartheid regime in 1949.</p>
<p>The decades of struggle between the apartheid government and the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">African National Congress</a>, <a href="http://pac.org.za/">Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania</a>, <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03192.htm">Azanian People’s Organisation</a>, the <a href="https://www.sacp.org.za/">South African Communist Party</a>, and trade unions are chronicled, culminating in the mass struggles for freedom of the 1980s, and the fraught negotiations of 1990-93 <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">to end apartheid</a>.</p>
<p>The current struggles by the families of killed detainees to get prosecution of torturers from the Special Branch – the notorious apartheid police unit – makes topical this books’ reminder that President F W de Klerk’s last action in office was to grant amnesty from prosecution to Adrian Vlok, Magnus Malan, apartheid police and military leaders, respectively, and 3,500 policemen and others, for atrocities committed to uphold apartheid. (p.352)</p>
<p>The winning of democracy a generation ago fills seven chapters. With hindsight, we can assess the consequences that in 1997 <a href="https://theconversation.com/jacob-zuma-likes-to-be-cast-as-a-man-of-the-people-but-is-he-50665">Jacob Zuma</a> was appointed to head the ANC cadre deployment committee: (p.373) chapter 29 is titled Captive State.</p>
<p>The ANC will look back to its 2009 election peak of 70% of votes; the opposition Democratic Alliance will similarly recall its 2014 election peak of 22% of the votes, reaching 30% in Gauteng. (pp. 404, 421) </p>
<h2>Criticism</h2>
<p>Inevitably, a six hundred page history book will have a few mistakes.</p>
<p>Walvis Bay in Namibia, then South West Africa under South African rule, was not conquered by South Africa in 1914 as claimed on page 47. It was annexed to the Cape Colony in 1884, as Simpson himself writes on page 243.</p>
<p>The Special Branch was not founded “about 1935” (p.150): <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Party">United Party</a> cabinet minister Harry Lawrence ordered it set up in 1947. Before that, Criminal Investigation Department detectives did political snooping, ever since the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/international-socialist-league-isl">International Socialist League</a> of the Cape Colony in the 1900s.</p>
<p>In 1968, University of Cape Town (UCT) appointments did not have to be confirmed by the government (p.216). The government threatened that it would extend the apartheid colour bar to academic posts unless the UCT Council rescinded its appointment of Archie Mafeje. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/archie-mafeje">Mafeje</a>, a black man, was an emerging scholar who became a major academic critic of the discipline of social anthropology itself.</p>
<p>There will always be more facts than there is space for. But this history should have mentioned that the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberal-party-south-africa-lpsa">Liberal Party</a> by 1960, and the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03491.htm">Progressive Federal Party</a> by 1979, had updated their policies to accept universal franchise. Also, bar the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/document-77-yu-chi-chan-club-pamphlet-no-ii-conquest-power-south-africa-1963">Yu Chi Chan Club</a>, there is not even one sentence on any organisations of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/non-european-unity-movement-neum">Non-European Unity Movement</a> family. Their activists influenced the boycott strategy of the <a href="https://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization.php?name=South+African+Non-Racial+Olympic+Committee">South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee</a>.</p>
<h2>Bleak conclusion</h2>
<p>This history paints a bleak conclusion to its twelve decades: xenophobic “pogroms and lynching had become a routine feature of South African life” from 2008 (p.400) with poor blacks attacking other poor blacks. A 153-day strike became the longest ever in South African mining history (p.415) in 2012, and we witnessed the Marikana massacre in 2012.</p>
<p>Chapter 30 is titled False Dawn in its summary of <a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-power-tilts-towards-ramaphosa-in-battle-inside-south-africas-governing-party-158251">President Cyril Ramaphosa’s</a> difficult first years in power. COVID-19 and the lockdowns culminated in the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng looting spree of July 2021, mixing opportunism and Zuma diehards <a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-in-south-africa-an-uprising-of-elites-not-of-the-people-164968">incensed by his incarceration for contempt of court</a>. </p>
<p>But it’s not all bad. South Africa spends 45% of its annual budget on the poorest 40% of its citizens. (p.393). Its constitutional democracy, and enforceable <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-02.pdf">Bill of Rights</a>, remain rare beacons on the African continent. Corruption triggered a huge backlash, including Ramaphosa’s appointment of new prosecutors.</p>
<p>If this history book runs to a second edition in a decade’s time (as Eric Walker’s did) we will await with interest any revision of its conclusions, which are that South Africa is on a downward path.</p>
<p>This is a thorough, fact-packed history that deserves to be in every school library and on every home bookshelf.</p>
<p><em>History of South Africa from 1902 to the Present is published by <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/thula-simpson-history-of-south-africa/cpbl-7180-g030?referrer=googlemerchant&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkNiMBhCxARIsAIDDKNUU7XlVLrUqPmgkQdKsNe1ZHc3EloPMUPMN9stKope-Ofx6kCBjnMIaAv-MEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds">Penguin Random House</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the ANC, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist. </span></em></p>This history covers twelve decades, from the surrender of Boer guerrillas in the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902 to the July 2021 looting spree and violence.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713112021-11-05T14:28:41Z2021-11-05T14:28:41ZSouth Africa’s local government is broken: could the 2021 election outcomes be the turning point?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430506/original/file-20211105-10010-1o3i5eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of main opposition Democratic Alliance wave the national flag ahead of the 2021 local elections. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/lge/">2021 local government elections</a> are set to go down in history as a watershed moment in the country’s politics. Electoral support for the African National Congress (ANC) dropped below 50% for the first time since the party ascended to government 27 years ago. Although it won <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/glen-mashinini-final-results-municipal-elections-4-nov-2021-0000">161</a> of the 213 contested municipalities, the number of councils without a clear majority of any party nearly quadrupled from 18 to 70.</p>
<p>A significant portion of voters stayed away from voting stations. Most were former ANC voters, <a href="https://www.kas.de/documents/261596/10543300/The+South+African+non-voter+-+An+analysis.pdf/acc19fbd-bd6d-9190-f026-8d311078b670?version=1.0&t=1608">continuing the trend from previous elections</a>.</p>
<p>Counting all eligible voters rather than only those who registered, voter withdrawal has reached a critical level. Less than a third of eligible voters –- 12 million out of 42.6 million -– <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/glen-mashinini-final-results-municipal-elections-4-nov-2021-0000">made their crosses</a>. Rather than apathy, this represents a “deliberate” stayaway vote, as the political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki <a href="https://www.enca.com/analysis/sas-crisis-wont-be-solved-soon-moeletsi-mbeki">has argued</a>.</p>
<p>This concerted withdrawal should be read against the results of a recent survey by <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/">Afrobarometer</a>, an independent pan-African surveys network. It found that local councils garnered the least trust <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ad474-south_africans_trust_in_institutions_reaches_new_low-afrobarometer-20aug21.pdf">out of 17 institutions in South Africa</a>. </p>
<p>Almost three-quarters –- 72% –- of respondents trust local councils “a little or not at all”.</p>
<p>This staggeringly low level of trust has to do with deepening socioeconomic misery. The South African economy was in recession before the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic destruction caused by the pandemic has pushed the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/24/south-africas-unemployment-rate-is-now-the-worlds-highest">unemployment rate to 44.4%</a>, when using the expanded definition that includes jobless people who have ceased seeking work.</p>
<p>The everyday struggle to survive becomes even harder in the face of a terminal deterioration in the provision of basic services by municipalities, such as water and sanitation, combined with corruption and infrastructural collapse that pose further threats to lives and livelihoods.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-voters-are-disillusioned-but-they-havent-found-an-alternative-to-the-anc-171239">South African voters are disillusioned. But they haven't found an alternative to the ANC</a>
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<p>A truism oft heard from politicians is that government cannot solve South Africa’s problems by itself. But what to do with a government that places impediments in the way of its citizens? This reality at local government level needs to be fixed for South Africans to regain their trust in the democratic process.</p>
<h2>Local government is broken</h2>
<p>More than half of people canvassed by market research group Ipsos believe that local governments <a href="https://www.enca.com/press-release/party-over-urgent-delivery-key">do not work optimally</a>. Voter perception of malfunctioning municipalities is confirmed by the oversight <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/MFMA/201920/2019%20-%2020%20MFMA%20Consolidated%20GR.pdf">reporting of the Auditor-General</a>, Tsakani Maluleke.</p>
<p>She reported irregular expenditure of R26 billion (US$1.7billion) at municipalities in the 2019 to 2020 financial year. Only 27 out of the country’s 257 municipalities received clean audits. Moreover, 57 of municipalities failed to even submit the legally required audits.</p>
<p>Maluleke pointed to a lack of monitoring and supervision underpinning a lack of accountability, with resources being mismanaged and services not provided as they should be. </p>
<p>The Auditor-General’s conclusions accord with voter perceptions. The Ipsos survey found that almost a quarter of respondents thought that local councillors were incompetent or corrupt.</p>
<p>The perception of incompetence is further borne out by a <a href="https://www.ber.ac.za/knowledge/pkviewdocument.aspx?docid=15008">recent study</a> by the Bureau for Economic Research. It revealed that only about half of senior government officials and financial managers had qualifications appropriate to the posts they held.</p>
<p>The ANC’s controversial policy of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">“cadre deployment”</a> plays a significant factor. The policy entails appointing party apparatchiks to key state positions. Selection is not done transparently. The result is civil servants deeming themselves to be accountable to the party rather than to voters.</p>
<p>This leads to incompetent people being put in charge of finances, including income management, debt collection and municipal projects. The Bureau for Economic Research found operational budgets were over-spent, while capital expenditure stalled at the 2009 level.</p>
<p>As a result, environmental and health catastrophes have hit many municipalities, including raw sewage polluting drinking water.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-local-elections-new-entrants-likely-to-be-the-big-winners-170804">South Africa's local elections: new entrants likely to be the big winners</a>
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<p>The geographically central province of the Free State, a water catchment area, <a href="https://www.ufs.ac.za/templates/news-archive/campus-news/2021/june/research-to-fight-water-pollution-in-the-eastern-free-state">is in dire straits</a>. Residents in small towns, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/news/day-and-night-we-smell-it-sewage-spills-make-life-hell-for-deneysville-residents-8e066221-2e91-4801-a2f0-a59d490c9c28">from the northern</a> to the <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/free-state-community-up-in-arms-over-constant-sewage-spills/">southern parts</a> of the province, have struggled for years with untreated human waste and other pollution flooding residential areas.</p>
<p>The crucial <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Vaal-River">Vaal River</a>, the border between the economic heartland of Gauteng province and the Free State, has become severely contaminated. As one of only three major rivers in a water-scarce country, it provides drinking water to <a href="https://www.groundwork.org.za/Documents/water/The_Vaal_Inquiry_Final_Report_15022021_MHP.pdf">45% of Gauteng’s population</a>. Apart from the risk to human health, scarce fish species have been pushed close to extinction.</p>
<p>The disaster is due to perennial failure on the part of the Emfuleni municipality to sustain <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-10-29-a-story-of-south-africa-emfuleni-residents-fed-up-with-vaal-river-pollution-inertia/">maintenance at its wastewater treatment plants</a>. </p>
<p>In a similar case, the Kgetleng Residents Association in Koster, North West province, won their <a href="https://cer.org.za/virtual-library/judgments/high-courts/kgetlengrivier-concerned-citizens-another-v-kgetlengrivier-local-municipality-others-interim-order-and-agreementcourt-order">court bid</a> in 2020 to take control of the municipal waterworks. The high court found that the municipality had violated its constitutional obligation of supplying potable water. </p>
<p>This is one among a number of cases in which residents step in where municipalities fail. But, as the Socio-Economic Rights Institute <a href="https://www.ber.ac.za/knowledge/pkviewdocument.aspx?docid=15008">argues</a>, this is not a sustainable solution.</p>
<p>Companies that attempted to bear the overwhelming costs of failing municipal services have eventually faltered. For example, one of the country’s largest poultry producers, Astral Foods, was <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/treasury-gives-the-poorly-run-lekwa-municipality-three-years-to-get-its-finances-in-order-after-publishing-financial-recovery-plan-5ed746e6-a5ec-46b3-afd8-7a592b11a233">pushed into technical insolvency</a> after spending millions to compensate for the collapse in electricity and water provision in Standerton in Lekwa municipality, Mpumalanga province.</p>
<p>Infrastructure collapse has also had a major economic impact in Lichtenburg in Ditsobotla municipality, North West province. After years of engaging the local council with no result, dairy company Clover closed the country’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/clover-closes-sas-biggest-cheese-factory-due-to-municipal-woes-in-the-north-west-20210608">largest cheese factory in Lichtenburg</a> and moved its operations to an existing factory elsewhere. The economically depressed region lost 330 jobs. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-dips-below-50-but-opposition-parties-fail-to-pick-up-the-slack-171253">South Africa's ANC dips below 50%. But opposition parties fail to pick up the slack</a>
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<p>Residents’ despair is exacerbated by corruption.<a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/">Corruption Watch</a>, an NGO that tracks corruption, found that one in six reports received from whistleblowers fingered local government. Irregularities occurred in procurement and staff appointments. Bribery was a common form of corruption, amounting to an extra <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-is-fraying-south-africas-social-and-economic-fabric-80690">tax on the poor</a> for state services that remain inefficient.</p>
<h2>Political appetite</h2>
<p>Given the colossal crises besetting local government, it remains to be seen whether newly elected councillors can win back the trust of the electorate. As these crises were in many cases created by the country’s political class, many voters will be sceptical about whether the appetite even exists to turn the dismal state of local government around. </p>
<p>But perhaps the plunging election turnout – particularly shocking in a country where people struggled for democracy – may finally jolt the political elite into action.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christi van der Westhuizen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 2021 local government elections signals widespread disillusionment with representative democracy that only a sea change in service delivery can fix.Christi van der Westhuizen, Associate Professor, Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (CANRAD), Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1669762021-09-07T14:57:21Z2021-09-07T14:57:21ZRace and capitalism: no easy answers, but posturing will get South Africa nowhere<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419301/original/file-20210903-21-18havdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Looters make off with supplies during the unrest that hit parts of two provinces in South Africa in July. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is likely that historians will conclude that there was no one reason why the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/anatomy-of-a-violent-july-data-mapping-shows-unrest-was-part-of-tactical-plan-to-shut-down-sa-20210806">recent riots and looting</a> of supermarkets, shops and warehouses in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, South Africa’s <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0441/GDP%202020%20Q4%20(Media%20presentation).pdf#page=47">two most economically important provinces</a>, caught up so many generally law-abiding citizens in their slipstream. There were seemingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-social-unrest-in-south-africa-and-what-might-be-done-about-it-166130">numerous dynamics at play</a>, from <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29614">the sheer poverty</a> of numerous black citizens through to the <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/six-suspected-instigators-violent-unrest-arrested">manipulations of social media</a> by supporters of former President Jacob Zuma, angered by his arrest.</p>
<p>However, one explanation which has been touted in various quarters has been that the upheaval was the outcome of <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2021-08-28-racial-capitalism-destroys-ubuntu/">‘the racial capitalism’</a> to which South Africa has been subjected <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2021-08-28-racial-capitalism-destroys-ubuntu/">over the centuries</a>. Such an explanation hearkens back to the racialised policies of the past, and how they twinned the <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/prisoners-of-the-past/">political ideologies of segregation and apartheid</a> promoted by South Africa’s white governments before democratic transition in 1994.</p>
<p>This view holds that the inequalities of the present, which continue to have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">strong racial dimension</a>, along with the brutal treatment handed out to poor black people – for instance, by the police at <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-tragedy-must-be-understood-against-the-backdrop-of-structural-violence-in-south-africa-43868">Marikana in 2012</a>, in the North West Province, when police shot dead 35 protesting miners – are a product of the history of racial capitalism in South Africa.</p>
<p>It is difficult to disagree with the major thrust of much of the analysis which is put forward in this vein. It is widely accepted that the democratic transition in 1994 was the result of an ‘elite pact’ which transformed the country’s politics but did little to undermine the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-undo-mandelas-economic-deals-52767">foundations of white economic power</a>. </p>
<p>It is continuity as much as change which characterises the <a href="https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-south-africa/">post-apartheid political economy</a>. Nonetheless, South Africans need to take care in ascribing all the present crises to ‘racial capitalism’. Blaming racial capitalism for all the country’s ills can easily become a way of deflecting responsibility away from the country’s present politicians – and from South Africans themselves.</p>
<h2>The past as present</h2>
<p>Colonial conquest happened in tandem with the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40404472">development of capitalism</a>. Both projects requiring non-white people, notably Africans, to become instruments for the purposes of others. Africans were stripped of their land and their possessions and became the tools of their oppressors. This process was not stopped by the arrival of democracy.</p>
<p>When miners of Lonmin in Marikana, in the platinum-rich North West Province demanded a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/2014-south-african-platinum-strike-longest-wage-strike-south-africa">reasonable increase in their wages</a>, the state colluded with foreign capital to crush their dissent. <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview">Inequality</a> nurtures this objectification of humans, leading to greater exploitation of the poor, who are overwhelmingly black.</p>
<p>The problem with the solution that is often provided – that the entire system of ‘racial capitalism’ should be overthrown – is that it is so remarkably bland. So, it is worth attempting to deconstruct it.</p>
<h2>So, what is to be done?</h2>
<p>Is the implication that racism and capitalism are inseparable? If that is so, is the further implication that capitalism itself should be overthrown? Which is perhaps a very nice idea, but first, is this practical and likely? Who is to do the overthrowing? At what human and other cost (as its unlikely that capital and the state would give up without a fight)? And what would be put in capitalism’s place? Is this to be a new socialist order, and if so, will South Africa be following historical examples (which, on the whole, have not been very successful) or will it be charting its own way forward?</p>
<p>Or is the implication that capitalism can be deracialised? This is very much what, in theory, the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed the country since 1994, has set out to do through <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DocumentCenter/Acts/Employment%20Equity/Act%20-%20Employment%20Equity%201998.pdf">equity employment</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.za/faq/finance-business/where-do-i-find-information-broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-bee">black economic empowerment</a> legislation. Although the corporate profile, in terms of ownership and management personnel has registered not insignificant change, most would agree that the achievements of ANC policies have been <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/employment-and-labur-20th-commission-employment-equity-cee-annual-report-2019%E2%80%9320-19-aug">remarkably modest</a>.</p>
<p>However, it remains a matter of considerable debate whether this is because of corporate resistance, social factors (such as inadequate supplies of suitably trained black personnel) and or the incompetence of the state. </p>
<p>Leaving aside the entire question of whether a de-racialised capitalism would be less exploitative than a racialised one, and whether it would be less patriarchal, the more fundamental issue is how can South Africa achieve it if current strategies – which most would agree are well intentioned – are proving inadequate in realising their goals.</p>
<p>Should equity employment and black economic empowerment be ratcheted up, when the prevailing cry from the business establishment is that more regulation serves as <a href="https://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2021/07/27/bee-sa-poverty">major barrier</a> to the inflow of much needed foreign investment? Will this increase or deter a rise in much needed employment? Or is it that current strategies should be re-engineered?</p>
<p>Often left out of such analysis is the question of what sort of state will be required to bring about the transformation to the more humane society South Africans are looking for. Present <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-1994-miracle-whats-left-159495">disillusion</a> with the post-1994 order highlights the limits of South Africa’s democracy, and the ways in which ANC dominance has eroded it.</p>
<p>Much attention lately has been focused on the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">ANC’s strategy of deployment</a>, how this has led to the substitution of political loyalty to the party for the capacity to do the job, how deployment has <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2021/05/its-da-versus-anc-over-cadre-deployment">led to corruption</a>, how it has <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/home-and-abroad/2021-08-04-justice-malala-how-the-ancs-cadre-deployment-ruined-sa/">destroyed state-owned corporations </a>, how it has undermined the efficiency of government, and how it has <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329309747_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_and_its_Effects_on_Performance_Management_in_South_African_Local_Government_A_Critical_Review">collapsed local government</a>.</p>
<p>The answer that is usually given is that it is necessary to <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/home-and-abroad/2021-08-04-justice-malala-how-the-ancs-cadre-deployment-ruined-sa/">undo the merger of party and state</a> and entrench the independence of the state to allow for expertise to flourish, and to ensure the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/opinion/2020/2020-01/build-a-capable-state-dont-just-talk-about-it.html">rise of meritocracy</a>. But then we are left with the conundrum whether the ANC is capable of bringing such a transformation about, or whether the ANC itself needs to be removed from power. </p>
<p>That, in turn, demands not only that it must lose an election, but that it will gracefully concede its loss if it did so. Perhaps both dimensions of that last sentence are unlikely.</p>
<h2>No easy answers</h2>
<p>So where does all this lead South Africa? Quite frankly, I don’t know. But I do know that the answers to South Africa’s numerous problems are far from easy. This does not mean that South Africans cannot work their way to finding the solutions, and unless they are just going to give up, they have to believe that they can. But, it is going to be extremely hard work. South Africans will have to talk to, listen to, and bargain hard with each other to find their way.</p>
<p>But one thing South Africans must draw from such complexity is that any realistic and workable answers will not be arrived at by posturing. Alas, there are no easy answers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall has previously received funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The democratic transition in 1994 was the result of an ‘elite pact’ that changed the country’s politics, but did little to undermine the foundations of white economic power.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610042021-05-18T14:49:06Z2021-05-18T14:49:06ZFixing local government in South Africa needs political solutions, not technical ones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401286/original/file-20210518-17-1e14nj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters gather in the middle of the road during a demonstration in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Thabo Jaiyesimi/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has long been good at <a href="https://www.ancpl.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Eye-of-the-needle.pdf">diagnosing its problems</a>, but not much good at fixing them. Its own documents have been accurately describing its problems for two decades – factionalism and corruption, which are often mentioned by its detractors, have been discussed in its reports and strategy documents <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/anc/1997/strategy-tactics.htm">since the 1990s</a>. But knowing what the problems are does not seem to help it to solve them.</p>
<p>The newest example of this ability to identify problems is a comment by deputy finance minister <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/person-details/192">David Masondo</a>. He told an ANC MP who asked him why local government was not working and was getting worse that the key was <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/politics-at-local-government-level-needs-to-change-says-david-masondo/">“sorting out” politics in local government</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We can change rules and regulations but as long as we don’t tackle the issue of political leadership at a local government level we will continue to have many of these problems.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Local government needed “developmental political leadership” which would be better able to work with business and national government to promote economic development. This leadership would also appoint competent officials.</p>
<p>South Africa has three “spheres” or levels of government – national, provincial and local. While all three are often accused of corruption and incompetence, local government is commonly identified as the worst. Councils are frequently accused of being unable or unwilling to provide residents with adequate services (seemingly because many councillors are only interested in self-enrichment <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2020-02-11-local-government-crisis-rooted-in-incompetence-and-corruption/">rather than public service</a>). </p>
<p>Studies have shown that Masondo’s diagnosis that the problem is political <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24858282?seq=1">is accurate</a>. His comment also sheds light on government in South Africa. From the early 1990s, the country’s elites have shown a strong taste for technical solutions to political problems. They assume that if a law is changed or a policy is adopted which says that government should work better, it will.</p>
<p>The latest fad is that changing the electoral system will mean <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/guestcolumn/opinion-changing-our-electoral-system-is-now-more-urgent-than-ever-20200912">more accountable government</a>, despite the fact that the system to which most of the faddists want to change – in which there would be both proportional representation and the election of representatives in voting districts – <a href="https://www.etu.org.za/toolbox/docs/localgov/local.html">already operates</a> in the same local government which everyone agrees <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-paying-a-heavy-price-for-dysfunctional-local-government-102295">is not working</a>.</p>
<p>Local government has seen its fair share of legal solutions and other technical fixes – the favourite right now is the <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/ddm/index.php/about-us/">district development model</a>, often mentioned as a solution by President Cyril Ramaphosa.</p>
<p>Officially, this allows municipalities to draw on help from national and provincial government – some in government no doubt hope that what it really means is that they will tell local government what to do. But even if they do help rather than instruct, this assumes that the cure for local government’s ills is technical, that municipalities need help on how to perform management tasks. In reality, the problem is political.</p>
<h2>Good diagnosis, bad remedy</h2>
<p>South African local government is deeply unpopular – it has been the <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">target of protest</a> in the <a href="https://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Bond%20Townships.pdf">townships</a> (black residential areas) and shack settlements for years. While it is fashionable to say that the problem is poor <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/south-africa-what-does-service-delivery-really-mean">“service delivery”</a>, which means that local government is not good at technical tasks, the real reason is that people believe, accurately, that mayors or councillors do not hear them and so have <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">no idea what they need</a>.</p>
<p>So, Masondo does know what the problem is. His solution is less clear. What are “developmental” political leaders? Since he also <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/rush-of-candidates-to-anc-political-school-20210515">heads the ANC’s political school</a>, he may believe that they are produced by careful selection and training. This would not be the first time the ANC believed it needed a “better” sort of candidate. Former president Thabo Mbeki <a href="https://cisp.cachefly.net/assets/articles/attachments/82857_tmf_newsletter_-_july_2020.pdf">still argues</a>, as he did when he was president, that the ANC reserved its best people for national and provincial government and sent only the third best to local government. ANC elections head Fikile Mbalula wanted to ensure that only people with <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1495010/mbalula-only-people-with-impeccable-credentials-should-be-elected/">“impeccable credentials”</a> were chosen.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A bespetacled man with a clean shave smiles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Deputy finance minister David Masondo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But who is “developmental” or who has the right character are matters of opinion. Who would decide who the “right” people are and why is their judgement better than anyone else’s? Nor do qualifications necessarily make anyone a better representative – what is needed is not a degree but a willingness to listen to people and to serve them.</p>
<p>This approach also misunderstands why local councillors often don’t care what their voters think. The reason is not that people have not taken the right courses. It is that, in an economy from whose benefits many are excluded, politics is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-in-south-africa-is-deeply-rooted-in-the-countrys-past-and-why-that-matters-144973">route into the middle class</a>.</p>
<p>Since some parties are reelected in suburbs (mainly white and wealthier) and townships whatever their councillors do, keeping your seat – and so staying in the middle class – depends on impressing not voters but the power holders who decide who the candidates are. None of this will be changed by introducing character tests or requiring qualifications.</p>
<p>Even if training or selecting a new set of leaders is not what Masondo has in mind, he does insist that it is the type of person who becomes a councillor which matters. But local government lacks popular support because of deep-seated realities which will remain no matter what type of candidates are selected.</p>
<h2>Fixing the problem</h2>
<p>The problem is not that the wrong people are being chosen. It is that the wrong people are doing the choosing – not only of candidates but of what they do if elected. While the ANC talks of ensuring that “communities” choose candidates, the process is dominated by elites who decide who should be chosen and what they should do if they win.</p>
<p>For example, the law provides for <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/index.php/2020/03/20/municipal-ward-committees-need-know/">ward committees</a> which are meant to enable “community members” to tell the councillor what they want. But the committees usually comprise politically connected people because members are not chosen in direct elections. Either they are elected at meetings which only activists attend or are simply selected. </p>
<p>This further strengthens pressure for councillors to take their cue from elites rather than voters.</p>
<p>If the politics is really to change, local voters must gain far more control over councillors. In the suburbs, where people can hold councillors to account, they usually choose not to. In townships and shack settlements, people often can’t do this because the elites have much more power than them.</p>
<p>Not much can be done about this in the suburbs (people can’t be forced to hold councillors to account if they don’t want to), but much could be done elsewhere to change a power balance which always dooms most voters to putting up with councillors who don’t serve them. If that began to happen, the deep-seated realities would ensure that many councillors would still see office as a ticket into the middle class. But keeping hold of the ticket would depend on impressing voters, not party elites.</p>
<p>This point goes beyond local government. South Africa’s politics <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">divides</a> the political world into “good people” who are the solution and “bad people” who are the problem. Local government is not the only area in which this hides the real problem: a power balance which ensures that most citizens have little control over the governments they elect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The problem in municipalities is not that the wrong people are being chosen. It is that the wrong people are doing the choosing – not only of candidates but of what they do if elected.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1599252021-04-28T07:33:57Z2021-04-28T07:33:57ZRisks and rewards for South African president as he takes the stand at corruption inquiry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397515/original/file-20210428-15-18xrubd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa faces a tricky time giving evidence about corruption. He wears two presidential hats: as head of the African National Congress, and the government.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/state-capture-inquiry-ramaphosa-expected-to-cooperate-but-not-to-break-anc-ranks-20210428">appear</a> before the Zondo Commission of inquiry into corruption in South Africa comes at a delicate time. A great deal hinges on it.</p>
<p>When a sitting President appears before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry it is always a significant moment.</p>
<p>Sometimes a Commission will be concerned with a failure or with misconduct that has taken place under the particular head of government’s own watch. But other times, it may be that it is the mistakes of a previous administration or President that are under scrutiny.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s case is unusual as it is neither one nor the other. The Commission’s terms of reference are focused clearly on events that took place while Ramaphosa’s immediate predecessor <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/uploads/Terms_Of_Reference.pdf">,Jacob Zuma, was President</a>, between 2009 and 2018. Ramaphosa was elected president in <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-cyril-ramaphosa%3A-profile">February 2018</a>.</p>
<p>But, from 2012 until his election at the party’s five-yearly national elective conference <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-cyril-ramaphosa-a-profile-of-the-new-leader-of-south-africa-89456">in December 2017</a>, he was deputy president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). And from 2014, Ramaphosa served as deputy president in government, appointed by Zuma.</p>
<p>And therein lies the particular rub of his evidence.</p>
<h2>Major contrast between Ramaphosa and Zuma</h2>
<p>A substantial volume of evidence has been adduced against Zuma. These include allegations of abuse of power and constitutional duty. The allegations are <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/2hoa.pdf">summarised over 15 pages</a> in the Zondo Commission’s heads of argument in related constitutional court proceedings.</p>
<p>It is Zuma who must answer to these grave allegations, not Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>The juxtaposition with Zuma is coincidently well-timed for Ramaphosa. In contrast to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-defiance-is-a-grave-moment-for-south-africa-but-its-not-a-constitutional-crisis-155392">slippery Zuma</a>, Ramaphosa has consistently made it clear that he will readily appear in front of the Commission. His original affidavit was sworn and delivered in <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/07/26/zondo-inquiry-releases-ramaphosa-affidavit">mid-2019</a>.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa will be eager to communicate his position that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3erypBHQY6s">no-one should be above scrutiny</a> and that all parts of society, from government to the private sector, and including the ANC, should be examined by Zondo for their role in permitting or enabling the state to be captured.</p>
<p>So unless he departs drastically from character, or unravels under the pressure of the moment or from cross examination, Ramaphosa will come across as a measured, decent and reasonable. And in the light of his strenuous efforts to rebuild state institutions decimated from the Zuma years, an ethical reformer who has steadfastly held his finger on the reset button in both government and the ANC since securing power three years ago.</p>
<p>In short, as a constructive, helpful, open and credible witness – in sharp contrast to many other witnesses from the Zuma era of government.</p>
<p>As if he was limbering up to play this role, at Freedom Day events this week Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/vote-out-councillors-who-steal-money-dont-deliver-services-ramaphosa-on-freedom-day-20210427">spoke bluntly</a> about the failures of the ANC and of government, inviting citizens to vote out councillors who steal money or fail to deliver services.</p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-cyril-ramaphosa-a-profile-of-the-new-leader-of-south-africa-89456">Who is Cyril Ramaphosa? A profile of the new leader of South Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Again, the contrast with Zuma – who on more than one occasion said that the <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2008-09-09-anc-will-rule-until-jesus-comes-back/">“ANC will rule until Jesus comes”</a> – is striking. </p>
<p>Clearly, Ramaphosa is now <a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-power-tilts-towards-ramaphosa-in-battle-inside-south-africas-governing-party-158251">sufficiently confident</a> of the strength of his position within the ANC to speak over the heads of his troubled and divided organisation to the broader electorate.</p>
<h2>Tricky job for counsel</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa will appear as president of the ANC. He will then return to the commission wearing his other presidential hat, as head of government. </p>
<p>Such has been the electoral dominance of the ANC, winning all six national elections since 1994 with never less than 57% of the popular vote, that it’s internal political machinations have a huge impact on government. When one individual controls both centres of power, they wield vast power. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">Cadre deployment</a>, the ANC policy of appointing party loyalists to key state positions, is likely to be an <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2021/04/28/watch-live-ramaphosa-maintains-anc-deployment-committee-is-necessary">important topic</a>. Ramaphosa was <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/cyril-ramaphosa-must-account-for-anc-cadre-deployment-says-da-9da78c93-f960-4b53-911b-4ebae684ef9e">chair</a> of the ANC’s deployment sub-committee during a critical period of the Zuma administration. </p>
<p>How and why did certain people get appointed to government? Or, on the other hand, how and why did the ANC leadership apparently lose so much control that according to some witnesses, nefarious outsiders – in particular the family at the centre of the allegations of corruption, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">the Guptas</a> – were <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-politics-idUSKBN1720PG">driving cabinet reshuffles?</a></p>
<p>And, relatedly, to what extent did the ANC’s top brass – of which Ramaphosa was a part from 2012 onwards – know about the levels of corruption? And what did they – and Ramaphosa specifically – do to stop it?</p>
<p>Next month, when Ramaphosa returns to the Commission, it may get even trickier. Zuma was president. But Ramaphosa was at the cabinet table when at least some of the most dubious and problematic decisions were taken. Moreover, he was head of the “war room” set up to try and stabilise the state power utility Eskom, one of the main centres of corruption.</p>
<p>This is the downside risk for Ramaphosa. That there is no satisfactory or credible answer to such questions, other than ones that either make him look weak and unprincipled, or hapless and ineffective.</p>
<h2>High stakes</h2>
<p>All legal proceedings have inherent uncertainties and unpredictability, although Ramaphosa’s risk is less one of legal liability and far more one of political discomfiture and, perhaps, accountability.</p>
<p>How much did Ramaphosa know and what did he do about it? </p>
<p>Sometimes the best questions in cross examination are the simplest. And it is important that Ramaphosa’s evidence is sufficiently robustly tested. It must ensure that no-one can credibly say Ramaphosa has been given an easy ride.</p>
<p>In this sense, the credibility of the Zondo Commission is as much in the spotlight as Ramaphosa.</p>
<p>The truth is that Ramaphosa, with a few other thick-skinned souls – chief among them the current minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan – made a strategic choice. They decided to stick it out as long as they could, doing everything possible to limit the damage. They did this recognising that if they resigned on principle it would give Zuma even greater freedom to asset strip the democratic state.</p>
<p>In Ramaphosa’s case, his decision was clearly to play the long game. By staying as deputy president he was in pole position to succeed Zuma in 2017 and launch the difficult process of organisational renewal and institutional rebuilding.</p>
<p>But this is probably not an approach that can be easily sold or spun. Nor can he dodge responsibility behind the veil of ‘collectivism’, in the case of the ANC, or demarcated portfolio authority in cabinet.</p>
<h2>Awkward moment, or opportunity?</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa’s best bet is probably to ‘own it’. This would mean presenting himself as South Africa’s version of <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2020-10-03-richard-calland-south-africa-needs-a-roosevelt-style-of-leadership/">Franklin D. Rooseveldt</a>, America’s reform-minded president of the 1930s – a level-headed man fit for a time of great national crisis and speaking over and above the ANC to a society lamenting a lost sense of decency in public life.</p>
<p>In this vein, Ramaphosa has an opportunity to turn a delicate and potentially awkward moment into an opportunity. There are potential rewards as well as risks for South Africa’s president.</p>
<p>Rather than duck, dive or divert, Ramaphosa can choose to err on the side of candour and openness, and use the power of presence and the force of example to deliver a compelling narrative about political reform and ethical renewal that may one day come to be recognised as a defining moment in his leadership and a moment of hope for a beleaguered nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is a founding partner of political risk consultancy, The Paternoster Group, and a member of the advisory council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution. </span></em></p>Ramaphosa will be eager to communicate his position that no one should be above scrutiny and that all parts of society,should be examined by the Commission.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1580712021-04-06T13:31:21Z2021-04-06T13:31:21ZFormer opposition leader Tony Leon pushes South Africa’s hot buttons in new book<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393119/original/file-20210401-15-1vrpm07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Leon celebrates
at the Democratic Alliance's final election rally held in Johannesburg, in April 2004. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tony Leon is the most prolific of all former leaders of the Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s main opposition party, as befits the chair of a communications company. </p>
<p>In his latest and fifth book, <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/tony-leon-future-tense/jrxh-7080-g790"><em>Future Tense: Reflections on my Troubled Land</em></a>, he comes across as articulate and persuasive.</p>
<p>The Democratic Alliance has, ever since its original founding as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-democratic-alliance-at-60-big-strategic-questions-lie-ahead-117129">Progressive Party in 1959</a>, opposed injustices committed by the apartheid government. Today, its support is overwhelmingly from demographic minorities. Its current challenges include ensuring black people are more visible among its top leadership. </p>
<p>Recent turmoil included veteran party leader <a href="https://www.da.org.za/people/helen-zille-2">Helen Zille</a> propelling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mmusi-aloysias-maimane">Mmusi Maimane</a> into the leadership of the party. The other was Tony Leon’s role in <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-10-22-mmusi-maimane-inconsistent-and-conflict-averse/">pressuring Maimane to resign</a> after a series of DA tactical errors culminated in electoral losses <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll-showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and-outsiders-121758">in 2019</a>. </p>
<p>The new and most useful content in his book is in chapters 2 and 3. They provide the first insider account of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/imposter-syndrome-explains-why-first-black-leader-of-south-africas-main-opposition-party-quit-125826">ousting of Maimane</a>, the party’s first black leader, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-10-23-breaking-da-leader-mmusi-maimane-quits/">in October 2019</a>. His meteoric rise and that of former DA parliamentary leader <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lindiwe-mazibuko">Lindiwe Mazibuko</a>, and the attempted recruitment of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-mamphela-aletta-ramphele">Mamphela Ramphele</a>, the outspoken liberation struggle activist, were viewed as the DA expanding out of its former limits, to gain African voters. Their departures deflated such hopes.</p>
<p>Leon also delves into the accompanying turmoil within the DA because of the choices made by <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-liberals-are-failing-to-wrap-their-heads-around-race-127029">Zille</a>, who has retained senior positions in the party and refused to relinquish power. </p>
<p>Leon mulls over the DA’s biggest challenge: “how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority” (page 21).</p>
<p>These remain unsolved conundrums for the party even after two decades of democracy. <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/racial-classification-under-apartheid-43430">African</a> voters comprise four-fifths of the electorate. For the DA to ever become the ruling party, even in a coalition, it must win over more than just <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">racial minorities</a> voters.</p>
<h2>Strengths</h2>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> raises classical political issues that have been debated for over two centuries. One of the biggest is: what is the optimal blend of markets and the state in the economy? </p>
<p>A pragmatic – and not dogmatic – answer would surely be different between different countries, and between different times.</p>
<p>For example, during the 1950s, socialists like <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/jawaharlal-nehru-1889-1964">Jawaharlal Nehru</a> in India and <a href="http://nasser.bibalex.org/Common/NasserLife_en.aspx?lang=en">Gamal-Abdel Nasser</a> in Egypt knew what to do for unemployment: the state should found steel mills and textile mills to employ tens of thousands of people.</p>
<p>But in 2021, an automated and robotic steel and textile mill typically each employ far fewer workers. Jobs now lie in tourism, computer coding, and digital industries such as designing websites. These require accomplished skill sets. With protracted unemployment standing at a horrific 42% (and reaching 93% in a small country town such as Touws Rivier) this is a hot button for South Africa.</p>
<p>Another hot button topic Leon touches on is the issue of affirmative action. He points to what he sees as a contradiction – the fact that the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#7">Bill of Rights</a> enshrines non-racialism, yet the government pursues a policy of affirmative action. </p>
<p>Leon points out that the mechanistic enforcement of affirmative action for demographic proportionality (black people are the majority) has the consequence that “Indian” police officers (from a demographic representing 3% of South Africans) are banned from being promoted to all top tiers where there are fewer than 34 posts. This is the opposite of a non-racial society where any individual can be promoted solely on merit.</p>
<p>Much of <em>Future Tense</em> is taken up with summarising two decades of media exposés of corruption in the African National Congress (ANC) government, and the descent into kleptocracy under Jacob Zuma’s presidency between <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2009 and January 2018</a>. Leon ascribes the main cause to the ANC policy of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">cadre deployment</a>. The practice makes sure that key government positions are held by party loyalists. This is similar to what the USA calls the “spoils system”. It’s been criticised as valuing party loyalty over ability, competence and probity. </p>
<p>Leon also ascribes the cause of corruption to the ANC removing the power of the Public Service Commission to promote civil servants solely on merit. </p>
<p>The weight of his arguments may be judged by the fact that the government is now publicly discussing restoring the remit of the Public Service Commission on this issue.</p>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> also discusses foreign policy. The ANC’s historical allies were the Soviet Union (Russia) and Cuba. The US, the UK, Germany and other EU states remain South Africa’s major investment and trading partners. Leon, a former ambassador to Argentina, argues that the ANC’s cold war vintage rhetoric and stances do not succeed in optimally managing the complexities of these global realities.</p>
<h2>Criticisms</h2>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> repeatedly reminds readers of how many dire predictions and prophecies of South Africa’s future have come a cropper.</p>
<p>The book offers its readers both the virtues of the liberal vision and its limitations. Virtues of the liberal vision include support for individual human rights, accepting doubt and uncertainties, and tolerating dissenting opinions. Limitations are that it sometimes opposes state interventions in the market to mitigate social injustices, and redressing some of the issues raised by identitarian politics.</p>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> has more than a chapter on millionaire and billionaire emigration from South Africa. They are supposedly driven out mostly by state affirmative action, preferential procurement and other economic policies, as well as the crime wave. But it doesn’t have even one sentence about the immigration of two million working class Africans from other countries, and what this might tell us. Leon’s closeness to the plutocratic classes is matched by his distance from acquaintance with working class realities.</p>
<p>He gives an example of how affirmative action caused the emigration of one white University of Cape Town postdoctoral fellow. But he does not mention how the university has attracted top scholars from other African countries.</p>
<p>One chapter explicitly, and the book as a whole, is suffused with the perspectives and arguments of private wealth and investment bankers.
But the contrasting arguments of the labour movement, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the biggest labour federation, and the research done by the NGOs supporting it, appear only in a sentence or two for dismissal.</p>
<p>Similarly, this book and the Democratic Alliance, which the author once led and is still associated with, give readers the impression that they judge South Africa’s foreign policy by the degree to which it complies with the foreign policy of the <a href="https://www.nato.int/">North Atlantic Treaty Organisation</a> countries, and have a tin ear for the importance of pan-African empathies.</p>
<p>There is no nuanced perception that western powers selectively invoke human rights violations against their targeted regimes, while enthusiastically selling armaments to human rights violators they view as business friendly.</p>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> is a good read, and should be on everyone’s bookshelf. This reviewer hopes that former South African president Thabo Mbeki and the incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa will not leave everything to their biographers, but will also write up their own memoirs. It is good to have both former presidents, as well as former leaders of the official opposition, tell us in their own words their perspectives on what happened.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>Leon mulls over the Democratic Alliance’s biggest challenge: ‘how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority’.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1528472021-01-11T14:55:37Z2021-01-11T14:55:37ZSouth African politicians, not bureaucrats, stand in the way of a professional civil service<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377729/original/file-20210108-19-1828kls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=45%2C36%2C1983%2C1195&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa has seen a sharp rise in protests due to incompetence within its civil service. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The post-COVID-19 world will demand that governments do more with less, or at least spend within their means. Economic activity has ground to a halt. In South Africa’s case, the country was in bad shape even before the pandemic. </p>
<p>COVID-19 coincided with the downgrading of the country’s credit <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/economy/2020-03-31-the-price-sa-will-pay-for-being-downgraded-to-junk/">status to junk</a>. More than three million people have since <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/job-losses-due-to-coronavirus-pandemic-will-take-several-years-to-recoup-economist/">lost their jobs</a> as companies shut down, reducing revenue collection. Estimates put the shortfall in revenue collection for last year between <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/30649/south-africa-vs-coronavirus-public-finances-looking-prickly/">R150 billion and R250 billion</a> (US$9.8bn-$16.3bn).</p>
<p>South Africa’s civil service, however, is notorious for wasteful expenditure. According to the Auditor General, in national and provincial departments alone for <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/PFMA/201718/MR/2018%20PFMA%20Media%20Release.pdf">the year 2017/18</a>, the amount wasted stood at a staggering R2.57bn. The government’s recently released policy framework, in which it decries the lack of professionalism in the public service and <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202012/44031gon1392.pdf">recommits government to fix the problem</a>, is therefore welcome. </p>
<p>But there is a problem with the framework in its current form. It is overly focused on the administration. The real problem has more to do with politics. Yes, it’s true that the appointment of incompetent and uncaring civil servants has had a corrosive effect on government’s ability to do its job. And there may well be a substantial number of personnel who occupy positions for which they are unqualified. But all this has largely been caused, if not enabled, by politics.</p>
<h2>History of political appointments</h2>
<p>Democratic South Africa did not start off with an independent bureaucracy when apartheid ended <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/04597239308460952?journalCode=tssu20">in 1994</a>. Politics took priority over the bureaucracy. This was a necessary ordering of priorities for the new government, led by the African National Congress (ANC), to stand a chance of making any meaningful change.</p>
<p>An agreement reached before the first democratic elections included what became known as the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03005/06lv03006/07lv03096/08lv03104.htm">“sunset clause”</a>, which prescribed that apartheid bureaucrats be kept in their posts for the first five years of democracy. This created an odd situation. It meant that President Nelson Mandela’s newly elected administration would have to rely on apartheid bureaucrats to implement its policies of transformation.</p>
<p>But Mandela’s government ministers distrusted apartheid bureaucrats to implement their policies. </p>
<p>This vignette illustrates the point. A stalwart of the ANC, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/satyandranath-mac-maharaj">Mac Maharaj</a>, whom Mandela appointed to the cabinet, inherited C.F. Scheepers as his director general at the Department of Transport. </p>
<p>Maharaj explained the predicament facing new ministers to his biographer, <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/padraig-o-malley-shades-of-difference/jxmm-122-g960">Padraig O’Malley </a> (<em>Shades of Difference</em> pp 406, 2007).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some of our people’s wariness was so strong that it literally translated to ‘I won’t show it, but I’m going to get rid of this bastard as quickly as possible. Not because the man is bad, but because I proceed from the assumption that he comes from the old guard. I want somebody else from my ranks that I have confidence in.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maharaj chose to work closely with fellow activist Ketso Gordhan, whom he had appointed as special advisor.</p>
<p>Gordhan succeeded Scheepers as director general. A critical consideration in his appointment was familiarity with Maharaj. Not that Gordhan did not deserve the job. He had the competence that made him a leading and innovative public servant. But technical competence alone would not have got Maharaj to hire Gordhan. He still needed a track record of political activism.</p>
<p>Considering political affiliation a precondition for public service employment was more than a necessity. It was not new and had been prefigured by the apartheid government. As political journalists Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom revealed in their 1978 book <a href="https://www.warbooks.co.za/products/the-super-afrikaners-inside-the-afrikaner-broederbond-ivor-wilkins-hans-strydom"><em>The Super-Afrikaners: Inside the Afrikaner Broederbond</em></a>, no-one could be appointed into any meaningful position, not even inspector of a school district, without being a member of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/afrikaner-broederbond">Afrikaner Broederbond</a>, the secretive and exclusive intellectual vanguard of Afrikaner nationalism. </p>
<p>Gordhan’s appointment at director general in the first post-apartheid administration was partly enabled by the newly created <a href="http://www.dpsa.gov.za/">Department of Public Service and Administration</a>. It divested the old Public Service Commission of the responsibility for appointments. This placed politicians in charge of senior appointments <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/padraig-o-malley-shades-of-difference/jxmm-122-g960">in the public service</a>. Although appointed partly on account of political loyalty, most director generals were technically qualified. Most acquitted themselves superbly in their new posts.</p>
<p>So what went wrong?</p>
<h2>Meddling minister</h2>
<p>At some point, some of these senior appointees were behaving unprofessionally. </p>
<p>This was partly due to meddling from their political principals. Some senior executives, as we now hear from testimonies at the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission</a> on State Capture, caved in because they got a share of the favours they bestowed on their principals. Others carried out irregular instructions due to close personal relations. Some opted to leave the public service instead of capitulating to pressure <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Essays_on_the_Evolution_of_the_Post_Apar.html?id=DQ8iBgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">to commit misdemeanours or flout policies </a> (Maserumule, pp 197, 2013). </p>
<p>To its credit, the proposed policy implementation framework identifies political meddling in administration as one of the problems that requires remedying. </p>
<p>Yet none of the programmes it proposes – such as training, rotation among departments and secondment to academic institutions – are geared towards this problem. All target the bureaucrats. But ministers are just as blameworthy for lack of professionalism. Professionalism has to start with ministers for it to stand any chance of being embedded throughout the public service. </p>
<p>The proposed involvement of the Public Service Commission in the selection process may help. It will ensure appointment of personnel without any affinities to political heads. </p>
<p>This will protect them from political pressure. Having their job performance evaluated independently, which is not clearly spelt out in this framework, could also bolster the independence of bureaucrats. They will do their jobs freely without fear of dismissal if they disobey their political principals.</p>
<p>Ultimately, though, without ministers themselves being professional, the public service faces a tall order in achieving this goal. Their unprofessional conduct frustrates administrators and makes the work environment toxic. </p>
<p>There are countless instances of ministers changing the focus of the ministry, without completing existing programmes. These arbitrary changes betray a lack of appreciation for how long policies take to bear fruition. Instead, they insist on quick results, which entail cutting corners. By the end of their tenure, they have not only aborted what was a promising programme at the start of the term, but also have nothing show for their term.</p>
<p>Ministers too must be inducted. They clearly need it.</p>
<p><em>Mcebisi Ndletyana is the author of the <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/anatomy-of-the-anc-in-power">Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth</a>, 1990 – 2019 (HSRC, 2020)</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mcebisi Ndletyana receives funding from the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. </span></em></p>Professionalism has to start with ministers for it to stand any chance of being embedded throughout the public service.Mcebisi Ndletyana, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1354432020-04-07T15:55:48Z2020-04-07T15:55:48ZNew book shows how corruption took root in democratic South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326009/original/file-20200407-144186-11yi47n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ANC, which has governed South Africa since 1994, has failed to deal decisively against corruption in its midst. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Yeshiel Panchia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In evidence before a <a href="https://sastatecapture.org.za/">commission</a> of inquiry investigating corruption, South Africans have been treated to shocking revelations about brazen looting of state coffers. Ín his new <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/anatomy-of-the-anc-in-power">book</a>, Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990—2019, Mcebisi Ndletyana shows how the governing African National Congress (ANC) failed to enforce a strict moral code to guide its conduct in government when it took power <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">in 1994</a>, which laid the ground for malfeasance. Below is an edited extract from the book.</em></p>
<p>“Amandla, ANC, ANC!” (Power, ANC, ANC!), the chants reverberated throughout the municipal chamber. It was just after 3pm on 6 November 1995. The commotion was unusual for the customarily restrained municipal council proceedings. </p>
<p>It marked a similarly rare occasion. </p>
<p>For the first time in its 134-year history, the port city of Port Elizabeth, on eastern shore of South Africa, had elected a black man, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/christopher-nceba-faku">Nceba Faku</a>, as its 53rd mayor. Faku’s election, on an ANC ticket, followed a string of white males who had occupied the mayoralty since the establishment of the municipality in 1861. Unlike his predecessors, Faku had served two stints in prison and was once denounced as a terrorist for his role in the struggle against apartheid.</p>
<p>His election was truly a signal that the democratic change that started in the country <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">in 1994 </a>, had not only permeated throughout the structures of governance, but was also irreversible.</p>
<p>In reality though, local government remained largely untransformed throughout the 1990s. New legislation was still relatively absent. This lacuna allowed for the continued application of old apartheid practices. One of these was allowing councillors to adjudicate over the allocation of tenders. Previous councillors had abused this to advance their own their business interests. </p>
<p>The new democratic city council proceeded in a similar fashion, and council regulations allowed councillors to enter into business contracts with the municipality. Before doing so, however, they had to secure consent from the council and exempt themselves from any decision-making process related to their interests. </p>
<p>But, councillors did not always seek consent to bid for municipal work.</p>
<h2>Licence to loot</h2>
<p>Using the opportunity offered by their presence in council for business interests, or to generate alternative sources of income, was enticing for the new councillors. They only received allowances. For those to whom the allowance was the only source of income, being a councillor was an attractive opportunity to augment one’s income.</p>
<p>It was common for councillors, says Errol Heynes – who was deputy mayor at the time – to be approached by business people with bribes to vote for their being awarded a tender. According to Mthetheleli Ngcete, who was one of the councillors, some councillors approached them with stacks of money showing that they had been bribed.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Involvement in business also pitted councillors against each other. Some clashed over the same business deal. A prominent example happened in the late 1990s, over the plot of land where the <a href="https://www.suninternational.com/boardwalk/">Boardwalk Casino and Entertainment World complex</a> stands today. </p>
<p>It involved two companies, Emfuleni Resorts and Siyalanda Property Development. Siyalanda Property Development was publicly associated with councillor Sicelo Kani, while unconfirmed names of some councillors were connected to Emfuleni Resorts. Both companies made a bid for the same plots. The council could not decide, for a considerable period of time, which of the two companies should be sold the plots. </p>
<p>The council seemed to prefer selling to Emfuleni, whereas the executive committee appeared to favour Siyalanda. Emfuleni eventually built the casino, following a court decision in February 2000. Instead of insisting on buying the land, Emfuleni had switched to the easier option of leasing, to which the municipality agreed.</p>
<p>Before the lengthy wrangle was resolved, however, it had wrought serious damage on the ANC. In the midst of the impasse the executive committee was reshuffled. Five of its members – Mandla Madwara, Rory Riordan, Mcebisi Msizi, Khaya Mkefa and Errol Heynes – were removed. The dismissal was unceremonious. </p>
<p>They were not directly informed of their removal, but read about it in the newspapers. Madwara, Msizi and Heynes were, at the time, away in China on council business. Mike Xego, a prominent local ANC leader, narrates the story rather theatrically:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bagxothwa bese China. Kogqitywa bafowunelwa kwathiwa “buyani sanuba sayenza na lonto ben” iyele apho. Anisena magunya". [They were fired whilst in China and phoned to come back immediately since they had no standing anymore].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ANC justified the reshuffle on the grounds of supposed poor performance by the five councillors. Heynes was personally blamed for the ANC’s poor showing amongst coloured voters in the 1999 national elections that had taken place earlier that year. The term <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Coloured">‘coloured’</a> is an apartheid-era label used to refers to people of mixed European (‘white’) and African (‘black’) or Asian ancestry. </p>
<p>Madwara and his colleagues accepted the decision, but rejected the supposed reasons for their removal. The claim that Madwara and his colleagues were fired on account of poor performance was spurious. It assumed that their performance would have been evaluated. None of them were. Ngcete, who succeeded Madwara as chairperson of the municipalily’s executive committee, also does not recall ever being subjected to a performance evaluation when he was a councillor.</p>
<h2>No accountability</h2>
<p>Close scrutiny of the municipal performance disputes the assertion of poor performance. The mayor, Faku, with whom they occasionally disagreed, was complimentary about their performance. In his mayoral speech, made on 23 September 2000 – a year after the reshuffle – Faku singled out Madwara and Riordan as deserving of special praise for gaining the Port Elizabeth Municipality “the reputation as one of the most competent municipalities in the country”. </p>
<p>Ismael Momoniat, deputy director-general at the country’s National Treasury, recalls Riordan as a particularly competent city treasurer (as they were called then). As a result, according to Heynes, the municipality enjoyed a triple-A rating, which meant that its finances were sound, had reserves and could easily borrow.</p>
<p>Incompetence had nothing to do with the reshuffle. The real reasons, according to Mabhuti Dano, were their involvement in business and lack of accountability. They had used their positions in the executive committee, Dano explains, to advance their business interests.</p>
<p>Even if Madwara and his colleagues had business interests, they were not the only ones in positions of influence with such. The mayor, Faku, was a director at the construction company, Murray and Roberts, but survived the chop. Just as the 1990s came to a close, it became apparent that disputes were not settled objectively, but were swayed by personalities and factional support one enjoyed within the organisation.</p>
<p><em>Mcebisi Ndletyana’s book, <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/anatomy-of-the-anc-in-power">Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990 - 2019.</a>, is published by HSRC Press.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mcebisi Ndletyana receives funding from the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences.</span></em></p>The election of Port Elizabeth’s first black mayor in 1995 signalled that the democratic change that had started in 1994 was irreversible. But problems lay ahead.Mcebisi Ndletyana, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321322020-02-27T11:13:26Z2020-02-27T11:13:26ZWhat it will take to build a capable state in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316471/original/file-20200220-92493-psnobm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African National Congress top six leaders. The governing party's wishes are sometimes out of kilter with the dictates of statecraft. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP-GettyImages/Mujahid Safodien</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A major factor that undermines South Africa’s social and economic progress is the deficit in the capabilities of the state. This gap was identified long ago by the National Planning Commission, first in its diagnostic report in 2011, and again when it issued its final <a href="https://nationalplanningcommission.wordpress.com/the-work-of-the-commission-2/">National Development Plan</a> in 2012. The plan is the country’s blueprint for fixing its problems.</p>
<p>I define a capable state as a system of government that functions with relative autonomy from narrow ideological interests. Its parts work in a coordinated fashion to achieve clearly defined goals. It conducts its work efficiently and is effective in delivering services and critical economic infrastructure. </p>
<p>The core function of a state is to mobilise resources to meet its developmental challenges and manage long-term social and economic change. A capable state, with autonomy from political factions, is best placed to respond to changes and harness opportunities for development. Such states value innovation, human capital and merit. They emphasise economic performance, education, health care and infrastructure.</p>
<p>Currently, the South African state works in a fragmented manner and with no shared vision. </p>
<p>The reason it can’t deliver on its social and economic obligations lies in poor political choices and defective political management. Part of the problem is the relationship between the political machinery of the governing African National Congress (ANC) and the bureaucratic machinery of the state.</p>
<p>Adding to the challenge is that the ANC governs through a <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">tripartite alliance</a> with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. These seek to influence government policy and decisions. </p>
<p>It is impossible to build state capabilities in a sustained manner without overcoming these many tensions. This requires a solid nerve centre – essentially the presidency. President Cyril Ramaphosa has massive political capital that he is under-using.</p>
<p>He needs to mobilise resources across the state towards achieving a defined set of strategic objectives and priorities. And he needs to stare down factional and ideological interests that circle the state and its agencies. He should then use his executive authority to translate his strategic objectives into measurable outcomes that make a noticeable difference in the economy and society. </p>
<p>The process currently under way to <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/ramaphosa-to-sign-performance-agreements-with-ministers">sign performance agreements</a> with government ministers is a step in the right direction. But, without any system for cracking the whip, this may fall apart as it did under Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma.</p>
<h2>Capacity constraints</h2>
<p>The severity of capacity and resource constraints varies across different levels of government. Some of these relate to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">substandard political appointees</a>. As is clear from the Auditor General’s reports over the years, at the local government level capacity deficiencies are largely due to the <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/MFMA/2019.06.25/MFMA2017-18%20-%20Section%201%20-%20Executive%20summary.pdf">absence of technical skills and execution failures</a>. And municipalities routinely <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-06-26-financial-state-of-municipalities-has-worsened-ag/">disregard recommendations</a>.</p>
<p>Skills shortages are found in key areas such as project management, procurement and contract management as well as financial management. The ability to execute mandates and deliver services to communities is weak too. </p>
<p>Political management also matters when it comes to building great institutions – the other half of the equation of a capable state. Weak political management is clear from the parlous situation of state-owned enterprises, such as the power utility <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-energy-crisis-has-triggered-lots-of-ideas-why-most-are-wrong-130298">Eskom</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-in-unfamiliar-terrain-as-national-carrier-goes-into-business-rescue-128868">South African Airways</a>. </p>
<p>It’s also evident in defects in the institutions responsible for maintaining rule of law. It contributes to the tortuously slow grind of the <a href="https://sastatecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission</a> into grand corruption, which has yet to result in any prosecutions. There are also ambiguities in policy decisions in key economic sectors such as information and communications technology, energy and <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Companies/Mining/junior-miners-feel-undermined-by-regulation-policy-uncertainty-minerals-council-20200205">mining</a>.</p>
<p>The calibre of politicians who preside over the state determines the norms and standards by which the bureaucratic machinery of the state functions. As the founding father of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16248652-lee-kuan-yew">pointed out</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To get good government, you must have good people in charge of government. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A country can have institutions and policies that look good. But if there are no capable and ethical politicians who protect them, they are doomed to be ineffectual and not reach their full potential. It is impossible to build a capable state outside an acceptable ethical framework, and the necessary range of human capabilities at a country’s disposal. At the moment South Africa suffers capability deficiencies and institutional stasis due to poor political management.</p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>For President Ramaphosa, the important lever of statecraft for creating results in a democratic society is to act decisively in getting things done. This requires awareness of his power and authority, skills to read the political mood, and a strong urge to act decisively.</p>
<p>As the nerve centre of the state, he needs to signify acceptable norms and be hard on errant public officials. This should start with members of the executive who are underperforming. At the municipal and provincial levels, the centre needs to use fiscal tools to stop wastage and poor performance. </p>
<p>Effective leaders in government who lead through moments of crisis should immediately grasp the purposes and uses of power. They can achieve a great deal more through astute political management and centralised decision-making. They should focus on getting results rather than fixating on long processes of consultation as is the case in South Africa.</p>
<p>Finally, there are areas where government can achieve quick wins through well-structured partnerships to fix capacity deficiencies. </p>
<p>It can tap into the resources in the private sector. A number of mining companies, for example, could help build capabilities at the local government level. This could help address constraints in areas where their workers live. Such shared value may help improve the reputation of those companies.</p>
<p>We should, however, be careful of private sector firms and business leaders that are only interested in pursuing their narrow interests through proximity to political leadership. Partnerships with the private sector should be based on resolving clearly defined and specific challenges.</p>
<p>Building capabilities is key to retooling the state for higher performance. The starting point should be to fix political management at the centre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mzukisi Qobo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa suffers capability deficiencies and institutional stasis due to poor political management.Mzukisi Qobo, Head: Wits School of Governance (Designate), University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318602020-02-14T15:23:30Z2020-02-14T15:23:30ZRamaphosa dodges critical decisions, raising the question: is he a lame duck?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315509/original/file-20200214-10991-kbt9ix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his state of the nation address. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Sumaya Hisham/Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is it possible that South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa has become a “lame duck” president? This often happens towards the end of a leader’s term, especially when a successor has already been identified. But Ramaphosa is not even halfway through his first term. </p>
<p>That I even ask the question suggests that I have doubts that Ramaphosa is making the necessary decisions. By that I mean catalytic decisions that will define the legacy of his presidency and the fate of the country.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa has the misfortune of being president at the most challenging time in the life of post-apartheid South Africa. Economic activity is at its lowest, with growth this year estimated at <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/world-bank-cuts-south-africa-gdp-forecast-on-eskom-fears/">below 1%</a>. </p>
<p>The country’s tax agency will collect <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/mtbps/2019/mtbps/Chapter%203.pdf#page=7">R250bn below</a> what was forecast in the 2019 budget over the next three years. And unemployment – <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=1856&PPN=P0211&SCH=7622">at 29,1% </a> – remains a grave concern, although perhaps not as immediate a danger as dwindling revenues. South Africa has a massive welfare safety net – from free education and health to monetary grants – which has cushioned the country’s poor against the ravages of unemployment. </p>
<p>But because the tax agency is collecting less – the result of companies closing and jobs being lost – the little that goes into public coffers should be spent prudently. Is it being spent prudently? </p>
<p>The answer is a resounding no. Nor does the president’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa%2C-parliament%2C-cape-town-0">state of the nation address</a> offer much comfort. It showed that he has a preference for less contentious matters that attract praise. And there were such easy wins in the speech. They included relaxing regulations for independent producers to generate energy, and allowing municipalities to procure renewable energy. Students were promised more accommodation and aspiring business people should expect a state bank that will provide affordable loans to start a business. </p>
<p>These are all commendable measures, unlikely to attract any derision – at least not immediately. But the country’s problems will not be solved through safe decisions. This is a “decisive moment”, as the president himself acknowledged, that requires equally bold moves and vocal support for cabinet ministers carrying out his instructions. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa%2C-parliament%2C-cape-town-0">state of the nation address</a> showed, once again, Ramaphosa’s proclivity to avoid tackling contentious issues. Examples abound, but one of the most telling is his handling of the crisis at the national airline, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-in-unfamiliar-terrain-as-national-carrier-goes-into-business-rescue-128868">South African Airways</a>.</p>
<h2>Bungling big decisions</h2>
<p>South African Airways has been surviving on government bail-outs. After the previous CEO, Vuyo Jarana, <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/saa-ceo-vuyani-jarana-resigns-20190602">quit in exasperation</a> in June 2019, government eventually conceded that the airline was unsustainable in its current form. Tito Mboweni, the finance minister, thought the airline should <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-11-21-tito-mboweni-on-saa-close-it-down-and-start-another-airline/">simply be shut down</a>, or sold to a private owner. But government figured that it could still be salvaged. Its preferred course of action was to put it through <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-in-unfamiliar-terrain-as-national-carrier-goes-into-business-rescue-128868">business rescue</a>. </p>
<p>The understanding was that the rescue practitioners would do whatever was necessary to turn the national airline around.</p>
<p>But when it came to actually doing what was necessary to rescue the airline, the rescue practitioners soon began to realise that they didn’t have carte blanche. This became clear after they’d announced the cancellation of unprofitable routes, a step taken to reduce operational costs.</p>
<p>Khensani Kubayi-Ngubane, the minister of tourism, disagreed with the decision. Some of the cancelled flights, <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bt/business-and-economy/2020-02-09-saa-route-cuts-irk-minister/">she protested</a>, would harm the tourism industry. The minister’s protestation was understandable – she was protecting her own territory. What was bewildering was Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Companies/Industrial/ramaphosa-not-happy-with-saa-route-cancellations-report-20200207">agreeing with her</a>. </p>
<p>As the president he ought to have a broader appreciation that cutting costs would ease pressure on the airline’s finances. Moreover, the president should know that decisions like this hardly please everybody. A president, who has to balance various interests against each other, goes with the decision that guarantees the maximum results. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/public-approval-is-ramaphosas-only-defence-against-his-enemies-in-the-anc-130485">Public approval is Ramaphosa's only defence against his enemies in the ANC</a>
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<p>The president didn’t even provide a viable alternative plan. In his state of the nation address he said only that the “business rescue practitioners are expected to unveil their plans for restructuring the airline in the next few weeks”. It’s not clear from this whether the plan will be formulated entirely by the practitioners. </p>
<p>Government’s discomfort over the reduction of routes suggests that it wants to determine what the plan should be. This shows its reluctance to allow the practitioners to do what is necessary, however unpleasant, to make the airline commercially viable. </p>
<p>But finding funds to bail it out once more looks increasingly unsustainable. The latest injection – <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-01-28-saa-gets-r35bn-lifeline-from-development-bank/">a R3.6bn loan</a> from the Development Bank of Southern Africa – can’t be repeated. And any decision to take additional money out of government coffers will negatively affect other things. </p>
<p>As it is, the minister of finance has the unenviable task of finding money for all the things the president has promised. But Mboweni won’t be able to source money for students and aspirant entrepreneurs without denying others. And he’s likely to have to deal with an even more crippled national power utility as Eskom loses income when consumers – especially companies and municipalities – opt for independent producers of energy. </p>
<p>And assuming Mboweni does find money somewhere, will the president come to his defence when he’s attacked?</p>
<h2>Formidable foes</h2>
<p>It is difficult to sustain a fight against formidable foes all alone without support. Mboweni appears to be showing signs of resilience against severe criticism from the left wing of the party. But <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-01-14-as-battle-for-eskom-goes-nuclear-pravin-gordhan-is-once-again-the-target/">Pravin Gordhan</a>, minister of public enterprises, doesn’t seem to be doing as well. Since taking over this portfolio, Gordhan has exposed widespread maladministration and corruption in state-owned enterprises, and led the call for prosecutions. </p>
<p>Yet, after repeatedly supporting the restructuring of the airline, he also backtracked when business rescuers cut down on routes. This suggests he is taking a lot of strain, and may be capitulating. It’s not surprising as his detractors even include the country’s deputy president, David Mabuza. </p>
<p>Mabuza is unhappy that Gordhan has bypassed the governing party’s deployment committee when making appointments to boards of parastatals. The committee was partly responsible for appointing unscrupulous individuals that looted parastatals and its current head, Mabuza, is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/africa/south-africa-david-mabuza.html">not known for propriety</a>. But Ramaphosa has not been vocal in his public support for Gordhan. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa appears not to have realised that routine decisions are akin to inaction, no different from being a lame duck. Lack of support will alienate allies, which will leave him vulnerable to detractors. Without ardent supporters Ramaphosa may not even conclude his first term. He has formidable enemies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131860/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mcebisi Ndletyana received funding from the National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is affiliated with CASAC.</span></em></p>President Ramaphosa’s state of the nation speech showed his preference for less contentious matters that attract praise, rather than catalytic decisions.Mcebisi Ndletyana, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301362020-01-23T10:25:44Z2020-01-23T10:25:44ZCorruption in South Africa: echoes of leaders who plundered their countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311158/original/file-20200121-117921-1a946yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-corruption protesters march on Parliament in Cape Town in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock/Aqua Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the shameful achievements of the African National Congress (ANC) in its 25 years of governing post-apartheid South Africa is that it’s living up to the political stereotype of what is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060934439/in-the-footsteps-of-mr-kurtz/">wrong</a> with post-colonial Africa – unethical and corrupt African leaders who exercise power through patronage. </p>
<p>The widespread corruption in post-apartheid South Africa is epitomised by what is now referred to as <a href="https://beta.mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture/">“state capture”</a>. The effects of the entrenched corruption are exemplified by frequent power cuts <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/this-is-how-eskom-throttles-the-economy/">devastating the economy</a>. Another example is the government’s failure to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/watch-three-hour-train-delay-for-ramaphosa-during-anc-election-campaigning-20190318">keep the trains running</a>.</p>
<p>Democratic South Africa appears to have morphed into a fully fledged predatory state. The lobby group Corruption Watch <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/global-corruption-barometer-africa-2019/">reported last year</a> that more than half of all South Africans think corruption is getting worse. They also think the government is doing a bad job at tackling corruption.</p>
<p>Characteristics include using public office and resources to promote the private interests of ANC politicians and those connected to them. It also includes an entrenched culture of being <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-01-state-capture-wipes-out-third-of-sas-r4-9-trillion-gdp-never-mind-lost-trust-confidence-opportunity/">untouchable</a>.</p>
<p>Events in South Africa have echoes in countries across the continent. These range from the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51128950">Dos Santos family in Angola</a> to <a href="https://www.africanexponent.com/post/8617-mobutu-sese-seko-was-a-heartless-dictator">Mobutu Sese Seko’s</a> decades of thieving in Zaire. Mobutu is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060934439/in-the-footsteps-of-mr-kurtz/">credited</a> with the invention of modern African kleptocracy.</p>
<p>Of course, African leaders are not the only corrupt political leaders in the world. For example, Noah Bookbinder, a former trial attorney for the US Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-alleged-abuses-power-make-2019-one-most-corrupt-years-history-former-federal-1479715">recently argued </a> that US president Donald Trump’s </p>
<blockquote>
<p>increasingly egregious abuses made 2019 one of the most corrupt years in US history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the fact of the matter is that sub-Saharan Africa is in a league of its own. In the <a href="https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018">2018 Corruption Perception Index</a>, published by Transparency International, it appears at the bottom. The report released with the index stated that <a href="https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pages/2018_CPI_Executive_Summary.pdf">the region had</a> “failed to translate its anti-corruption commitments into any real progress”. In 2019, the region again appears at the bottom. Transparency International <a href="https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pages/2019_CPI_Report_EN.pdf">remarked</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sub-Saharan Africa’s performance paints a bleak picture of inaction against corruption.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Moral decay</h2>
<p>The ANC once represented a political tradition of opposition to apartheid <a href="http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/before/6105_nac.htm">rooted in altruism</a>. But the events that have unfolded since it took over running the government in 1994 suggest that it has become a corrupt machine. </p>
<p>It seems the party appears intent on following in the footsteps of the likes of the late Mobutu. </p>
<p>State corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda. For example, large-scale corruption is often framed around the liberation struggle rhetoric of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">empowering black people</a>.</p>
<p>The reality is that the black elite enrich themselves and their families through government tenders and other questionable and unethical means.</p>
<p>Former president Jacob Zuma is the “poster boy” for this black kleptocracy. He and his associates, the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2017-07-22-how-to-be-a-gupta/">Gupta family</a>, captured the post-apartheid state with the sole purpose of exercising power <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240555">to shape</a> policy making, and to control political institutions to their own advantage.</p>
<p>Dishonest politics has become a defining feature of post-apartheid politics while the legitimate fight against corruption is being made <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/zondo-commission-targets-blacks-20190629">analogous to racism</a>. It is a politics that is characterised by lack of ethics, morals, and logic, and has no legitimate place in a democratic society. </p>
<p>Yet it continues to trickle down to other societal institutions. Transport minister Fikile Mbalula recently <a href="https://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2020-01-16-broken-organisation-prasa-lost-r1bn-in-two-years/">described</a> the Passenger Rail Agency of the country as a</p>
<blockquote>
<p>broken organisation, struggling to provide an efficient and committed passenger rail service.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, South African Airways has been forced into a voluntary <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-airways-is-in-business-rescue-what-it-means-and-what-next-128409">business rescue</a> after its working capital dried up and the national treasury refused another bailout. </p>
<p>Of course, the private sector is not corruption free. Corporate businesses that have been associated with state capture <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-01-16-the-dirt-on-deloittes-consulting-deals-at-eskom-part-two/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5b0%5d=80895&tl_period_type=3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Business%20Maverick%20Thursday%2016%20January%202020&utm_content=Business%20Maverick%20Thursday%2016%20January%202020+CID_282a9da853386128d4e197c64e93802c&utm_source=TouchBasePro&utm_term=The%20dirt%20on%20Deloittes%20consulting%20deals%20at%20Eskom%20Part%20Two">include</a> Deloitte, McKinsey, KPMG, Bain & Company.</p>
<p>The breakdown in social order reveals a dysfunctional political system that rewards sycophants, con artists, thugs, greed, and antisocial attributes. The development of this patronage network is the product of the ANC’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">cadre deployment policy</a>. This values party membership over ability and probity.</p>
<h2>Lessons from history not learnt</h2>
<p>The history of democratic South Africa shows that the ANC has failed to learn from the experiences of post-colonial Africa, and thus avoid its unsavoury parts.</p>
<p>Instead, it has chosen to walk in the footsteps of other corrupt post-colonial African leaders. Small wonder that its frustrated citizens have turned to the courts to force the government to govern in their interests.</p>
<p>The latest example of this the Makhanda High Court ruling that the Makana Municipality be dissolved and placed under administration for failing to carry out its constitutional obligations to its citizens. The court <a href="https://theconversation.com/landmark-court-ruling-highlights-crisis-in-south-africas-cities-and-towns-130140">found that </a> the ANC-run municipality had failed to “promote a healthy and sustainable environment for the community”, as required by the country’s constitution.</p>
<p>More such political collisions between the country’s cherished democratic norms and the corrupt post-colonial political elites are needed to change the current political trajectory of corruption and incompetence. That is the only antidote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mandisi Majavu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In South Africa, state corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda.Mandisi Majavu, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301402020-01-20T09:37:46Z2020-01-20T09:37:46ZLandmark court ruling highlights crisis in South Africa’s cities and towns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310852/original/file-20200120-69555-ebzvvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The town of Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown, and surrounds have suffered serious neglect by the local municipality. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A high court in South Africa has passed a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/makana-municipality-to-be-dissolved-placed-under-administration-court-orders-20200114">landmark ruling</a> with far-reaching implications for municipalities that fail to carry out their constitutional duty to citizens.</p>
<p>The Makhanda High Court granted an application by the Unemployed People’s Movement that the <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/ec-municipalities/ec-municipalities/makana-local-municipality">Makana Local Municipality</a> be dissolved. The court ordered that
the <a href="https://provincialgovernment.co.za/provinces/view/1/eastern-cape">Eastern Cape provincial government</a>, under which the municipality falls, appoint an administrator to run its affairs. It will be the second time this has happened. </p>
<p>In 2014 the city was placed under administration for <a href="https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/service-delivery-lessons-from-the-makana-municipality/">three months</a>. This was because it was financially vulnerable, wasn’t maintaining infrastructure and service delivery had crumbled. At one point residents went without water for nine days. </p>
<p>That intervention failed to fix the problems. </p>
<p>Last year citizens turned to the judiciary, signalling that they were no longer willing to give government a chance to fix the problem. They are hoping that the judiciary can help solve the crisis of governance. </p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-07.pdf">Constitution</a> stipulates that local government must ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable way, promote a safe and healthy environment and encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations.</p>
<p>Municipalities are the third tier of government after provinces and the national government. This tier is also the closest level to ordinary citizens, and as such, forms the basis of the relationship between government and citizens. </p>
<p>Judge Igna Stretch said in her judgment that the conduct of the Makana municipality had been </p>
<blockquote>
<p>inconsistent with the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa … [by] failing to promote a healthy and sustainable environment for the community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ruling is a victory for activists who have been embroiled in a long-running battle against the dysfunctional and incompetent municipal council run by the African National Congress (ANC). The party governs the country and most municipalities. </p>
<p>This is the first time in South Africa’s democratic history that citizens have been able to argue successfully in court that local government is not living up to its constitutional obligations. The ruling effectively opens the door for others to challenge poor service delivery due to incompetent and dysfunctional governance. </p>
<p>The precedent-setting ruling is set to cause jitters in municipalities around the country. It might see more municipalities being challenged in court. It signals that when internal structures of accountability are dysfunctional the courts can provide recourse for citizens. </p>
<p>It could have broader implications too. South Africans will elect new local councils next year. The court’s ruling fundamentally undermines the ANC’s electoral claim that it’s creating a <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/anc-2019-election-manifesto-factcheck/">“better life”</a>. It signals that the party effectively failed at fulfilling the constitutional mandate given to it by the electorate. </p>
<h2>Decades of decline</h2>
<p>The current crisis in Makana has been in the making for almost a decade. The seriousness of the situation surfaced in 2011 when it became apparent that the municipality had cash-flow problems. By 2013 there were clear signs that it was in <a href="https://www.grocotts.co.za/2019/03/28/turning-around-makana-municipality/">distress</a>. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2019-04-18-makana-municipality-is-a-city-in-deep-crisis/">2014</a> the municipality was put under administration for a period of three months. This meant that an administrator, and not municipal executives, would oversee its day-to-day business.</p>
<p>Despite this, the situation never improved. Financial vulnerability, failure to maintain critical infrastructure, and a dysfunctional billing system continued. The delivery of basic services, such as clean water, <a href="https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2018-09-21-residents-mull-diverting-rate-payments/">gradually ground to a complete halt</a>: </p>
<p><em>“The city’s decrepit water and sewerage infrastructure has resulted in massive leaks of both fresh treated water, and sewage flowing down suburban roads and past schools.</em></p>
<p><em>Uncollected rubbish decomposes in piles on every street in Grahamstown east and informal rubbish dumps have multiplied across the city.</em></p>
<p><em>The roads are potholed; cattle, donkeys and other stray animals wander unchecked in roads, including national and regional roads such as the N2 which circumnavigate the city.”</em></p>
<p>The council is barely able to spend <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2019-04-18-makana-municipality-is-a-city-in-deep-crisis/">2% of its budget</a> on maintaining critical infrastructure. And amid a major water drought, the council effectively <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/disasters/2131699/rescue-our-broken-town-makhanda-residents-plead/">“chased away” NGOs</a> willing to help by not paying them.</p>
<p>The Makana municipality has been unable to address the <a href="https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2014-09-03-names-behind-makana-fiasco/">decline</a> in governance, financial mismanagement, as well as rampant corruption.</p>
<p>Makana is <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-government-in-south-africa-is-in-crisis-how-it-can-be-fixed-97331">not unique</a>. Only 18 of the country’s 257 municipalities received a clean audit from the Auditor-General in <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/MFMA/2019.06.25/2019%20MFMA%20Media%20Release.pdf">2017/18</a>. </p>
<p>The South African Local Government Association <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/news/salga-concerned-about-high-number-section-139-interventions-municipalities">is increasingly concerned</a> about the parlous state of financial management and performance by municipalities.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201906/agsareport.pdf">The root cause of this collapse</a> is that governance systems are built on patronage, rather than the principles of good governance. Appointments are political rather than based on merit, and executive and municipal positions become collateral for political support. </p>
<h2>Systems left unfixed</h2>
<p>In 2015 <a href="https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2014-09-03-names-behind-makana-fiasco/">a forensic investigation report</a> detailed corruption and maladministration, implicating senior officials and <a href="https://www.grocotts.co.za/2015/10/01/peter-left-a-legacy-of-corruption-mxube/">then executive mayor of Makana Municipality, Zamuxolo Peter</a>. </p>
<p>But those implicated have not been held <a href="https://www.rnews.co.za/article/da-grahamstown-lays-charges-for-slow-progress-on-kabuso-report-offenders">to account</a>. </p>
<p>The national ANC leadership attempted <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/decade-of-corruption-leaves-former-south-african-city-of-saints-in-the-dumps-11731531">some intervention</a>, replacing the Executive Mayor, but it left an ineffective municipal council in place. </p>
<p>Makana provides a good example of how patronage in a party-dominant political system undermines good governance. This hampers the ability of municipalities to fulfil their constitutional mandate of delivering services for citizens’ benefit. </p>
<p>The ANC is very aware of this <a href="https://anceasterncape.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/JR-Presentation-on-ANC-Discussion-Documents-March-2017.pdf">problem</a>. Yet, it is incapable of addressing it.</p>
<h2>Party’s poor response</h2>
<p>The Eastern Cape government has said that it intends to appeal the groundbreaking Makana court ruling, claiming it violates the <a href="https://www.algoafm.co.za/article/local/103339/bhisho-considers-appealing-makana-court-ruling">principle of separation of powers</a>. The decision is clearly driven by the ANC which runs the province and is concerned that the ruling will be used against it ahead of the local government elections. </p>
<p>The decision to <a href="https://www.grocotts.co.za/2020/01/16/government-may-appeal-makana-judgment/">“test the judgment to its fullest”</a> will effectively see the provincial government seeking ways to overturn a ruling that holds politicians accountable for their governance failures. </p>
<p>Instead of rooting out a culture of patronage and lack of accountability in the municipalities it governs, the ANC would rather turn the issue into one of alleged judicial overreach. </p>
<p>Unless it changes, its <a href="http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/south-african-elections-declining-dominance-anc-aopub/">ongoing electoral decline</a> may turn into a spectacular fall come the 2021 elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joleen Steyn Kotze receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>The precedent-setting ruling may cause jitters in dysfunctional municipalities around the country.Joleen Steyn Kotze, Senior Research Specialist in Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1174282019-05-21T13:41:08Z2019-05-21T13:41:08ZRamaphosa’s cabinet: who and what’s needed to end South Africa’s malaise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275677/original/file-20190521-23820-vt85gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C38%2C1806%2C1367&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa won't have free reign when choosing his Cabinet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africans recently went to the polls in a national election which the African National Congress (ANC) won by a wide margin. The incumbent president Cyril Ramaphosa will shortly appoint a cabinet after parliament officially declares him president. Thabo Leshilo asked Mzukisi Qobo, Cheryl Hendricks and Seán Muller what he should focus on.</em></p>
<p><strong>Given that Ramaphosa probably has less than five years in the job, what cabinet posts should be his top priority?</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Cheryl Hendricks:</em></strong> He needs to leave a legacy and live up to his promise of a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ramaphosa-promises-corruption-crackdown-at-maiden-sona-20180216">new dawn</a>. He therefore needs to concentrate on a few things that will make maximum impact. These include changing the conditions that generate high levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-seriously-consider-taxing-its-wealthy-citizens-116073">inequality</a>, as well as those that have made South Africa’s state institutions dysfunctional and have reduced its international standing. </p>
<p>So his top priority cabinet posts should be: basic education and higher education, economic development, finance, trade and industry, rural development and land reform, public enterprises, international relations and science and technology. </p>
<p>Finally, he needs to attend to the representation of women. South Africa has lost a lot of ground in the struggle to translate gender representation into gender equality and women’s peace and security. </p>
<p><em><strong>Seán Muller:</strong></em> There are four main dimensions that could be considered: strategic institutions, policy direction, effectiveness of the state and institutions for delivery. Ideally, Ramaphosa needs to pursue major improvements on each of the four dimensions in parallel.</p>
<p>What will be crucial in the context of rolling back the influence of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture">state capture</a> on strategic institutions will be who he appoints to justice and correctional services, police, state security, as well as the economics cluster (notably finance and public enterprises). </p>
<p>Then there are the posts that will be important in determining policy and delivery of social services. These include social development, health, education, water and sanitation, transport, and human settlements. Many of these are also important for economic services, along with departments like energy, mineral resources, communications, telecommunications and postal services, tourism and agriculture, forestry and fisheries. </p>
<p>Finally, there are departments that should play a key role in the effectiveness of the state itself. These include the departments of public service and administration, and cooperative governance and traditional affairs. Within the presidency there’s performance monitoring and evaluation. </p>
<p>To the extent that prioritisation is necessary, Ramaphosa has to ensure that reform of critical institutions is placed first – for the simple reason that everything else will be compromised if this fails. </p>
<p><strong><em>Mzukisi Qobo</em></strong> There are limits to Ramaphosa’s reform agenda in the next five years. For him to succeed, he will need to rely on highly competent technocrats to drive change within government, take bold and decisive action in reforming institutions early on, and take measures that may make him unpopular but have good results. For this to happen he will have to stare his party down and be his own man. The last time he put his cabinet together, his party constrained his options. The result was <a href="https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2018/03/07/ramaphosa_dilemma-divided-cabinet">a watered down compromise</a>. He can’t afford that this time.</p>
<p>But it will be hard for him to find capable ministers. This is true even in the economic cluster, apart from <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/finance-ministry/tito-mboweni-mr">Tito Mboweni</a> in the finance ministry and <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/pravin-gordhan/">Pravin Gordhan</a> in the department of public enterprises. Yet the economy is an area that will likely define the next five years of his term (if he completes it). With unemployment at <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate">27.6%</a>, economic performance and job creation in particular will be yardsticks against which his success will be measured.</p>
<p><strong>What attributes should he be looking for in these key positions?</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Cheryl Hendricks:</em></strong> People with integrity, people who have leadership skills and people who have a vision for the positions they will be stepping into. People with fresh ideas to deal with old challenges and who are willing to do the hard work it will take to rebuild the country. He needs a cabinet with a healthy mix of experience and youthfulness and gender balance. </p>
<p><em><strong>Seán Muller:</strong></em> A common error is to think that ministerial positions should be filled on the basis of area-specific expertise. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of ministers relative to senior officials (like the director general of a department). Ministers serve a political function and need not have any particular expertise in an area. </p>
<p>What matters is a general level of competence, commitment to their mandate and the public interest, and respect for the separation between political and bureaucratic competence. A minister’s core functions are arguably to ensure that the officials leading the department are the best – technically and ethically – and that they are allowed and enabled to do their job. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275681/original/file-20190521-23820-1x4czeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tito Mboweni will be hard to replace an Finance Minister.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Public confidence in the integrity of members of Cabinet is an intangible factor that is also important. But there’s tension between this and the challenges Ramaphosa faces within his own party. It is these that are likely to lead to the greatest compromises in cabinet appointments. Ultimately, it will do the country little good if he appoints the best Cabinet possible without factoring in party political considerations, only to then be so weakened within his party that he and his appointees cannot pursue the public interest.</p>
<p><strong><em>Mzukisi Qobo</em></strong>: The cabinet is a reflection of the quality and depth of the governing party’s leadership bench, whose heft has been in decline over the years. Even the best of its parliamentarians will struggle to bring renewed energy to the job. Many of them are recycled, as they were part of the political arrangements in the last nine years of corruption and institutional decay under former President Jacob Zuma. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-anc-itself-is-the-chief-impediment-to-ramaphosas-agenda-108781">Why the ANC itself is the chief impediment to Ramaphosa’s agenda</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And, there is no evidence that they did much to ameliorate its damage. Some, such as <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/jeffrey-thamsanqa-radebe-mr">Jeff Radebe</a>, have been in government for two decades. There is no evidence of innovative thinking in their approach to governance. </p>
<p>Under such circumstances, Ramaphosa may find himself relying a lot on informal networks, especially business links, outside of government. But this could undercut his credibility among constituencies within the governing <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=2051">tripartite alliance</a>.</p>
<p>Success requires a combination of experience, competence, integrity, and fresh ideas. This is particularly true in ministries such as the National Treasury, and those that interface with critical sectors of the economy such as agriculture, telecommunications, mineral resources, energy, and transport. </p>
<p>Since early 2018 there have been strong indications that Ramaphosa will overhaul the current structure of cabinet as part of institutional reconfiguration of government. The low-hanging fruit will be to reduce the size of the cabinet. Even a country like China, 20 times larger than South Africa, has a cabinet with 24 ministers compared to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-would-do-well-to-fire-all-its-deputy-ministers-58809">South Africa’s 35</a>. There is more emphasis on quality and meritocracy and less on viewing cabinet positions purely from the view of dispensing patronage.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa has a very difficult task ahead. Constitutionally, he can only appoint two individuals who are not members of parliament to his cabinet. That means he has to choose his cabinet from the list of MPs who are political fossils and were, by and large, part of the problem during Zuma’s administration. </p>
<p>The reality is that most MPs have a poor grasp of their oversight roles, are often out of depth on how government works, are under-prepared, and many see themselves as no more than deployees of the ruling party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Seán Mfundza Muller receives funding from a European Union-funded project, "Putting People back in Parliament", led by the Dullah Omar Institute (University of the Western Cape), in collaboration with the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, Public Service Accountability Monitor (Rhodes) and Heinrich Boell Foundation (South Africa). He is affiliated with the Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre (University of Johannesburg), regularly making inputs to Parliament oversight of the national budget, advising civil society groups on public finance matters and consulting for private sector organisations on an ad hoc basis. He resigned from the South African Parliamentary Budget Office in 2016. The views expressed are his own.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cheryl Hendricks is the Executive Director of the Africa Institute of South Africa at the Human Science Research Council which receives funding from multiple funding sources.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mzukisi Qobo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Cyril Ramaphosa has to ensure that reform of critical institutions is placed first. Everything else will be compromised if this fails.Seán Mfundza Muller, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Research Associate at the Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre (PEERC), University of JohannesburgCheryl Hendricks, Executive director, Africa Institute of South Africa, Human Sciences Research CouncilMzukisi Qobo, Associate Professor: International Business & Strategy, Wits Business School, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161802019-05-01T09:42:33Z2019-05-01T09:42:33ZSouth Africa’s black middle class is battling to find a political home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271553/original/file-20190429-194627-1inzf5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">None of South Africa's political parties are offering middle class black people a home.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s black middle class is growing numerically – and growing politically restive. But does it see the world differently from others? Does this translate into voting behaviour? </p>
<p>These questions require close consideration because the black middle class is already a critical constituency in some of the country’s wealthier provinces such as Gauteng, and is looking for a political home that’s stable and serves its class interests.</p>
<p>The post-apartheid project was meant to unlock the economic energies of all South Africans. But sluggish economic performance, coupled with a decade of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture">state capture</a> and the scorn former President Jacob Zuma felt towards <a href="https://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Zuma-scolds-clever-blacks-20150429">“clever blacks”</a>, has left the black middle class angry and wary. </p>
<p>They are angry at their exclusion from mainstream economic activity, where “boardroom racism” and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-business-must-tackle-its-deeply-rooted-prejudice-94686">racial ceiling are clearly at work</a>. And they are wary that unless they are members of the governing African National Congress (ANC’s) “charmed circle”, their chances of accessing state funds – normally required to help grow and stabilise the indigenous bourgeoisie after liberation – are at best slender. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-03-10-anc-poll-says-it-is-winning-white-voters/">recent survey</a> conducted for the ANC and which the party has not released publicly, asked over 3 000 Gauteng voters a range of questions about attitudes to politics past and present. The survey <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-03-10-anc-poll-says-it-is-winning-white-voters/">showed</a> that there are stresses and strains in the body politic in general, many of which are most acutely felt by the black middle class.</p>
<p>As a young man from Johannesburg put it in a focus group:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The one thing that is changing that is killing the ANC is the individuals inside. There literally is a clique, if you belong to this clique within the party, you will be all right and if you are against any of their ideas, you are pushed to the side.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The implications for the ruling party are clear: if its policy of appointing party loyalists to government positions <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">(cadre deployment</a> and state capture (or even overt patronage) remain the order of the day, the black middle class will simply withdraw all support from the ANC. This would be a dire indictment of the ruling party.</p>
<h2>Definition challenges</h2>
<p>Many academics, correctly, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2017.1379700">spend a lot of time</a> worrying about the precision of various definitions of (middle) class. These range from occupation to income and education to consumption, through to subjective self-identification. They also correctly bemoan the clumsiness of survey attempts to measure class <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqkBEv58wzs">in all its nuances</a>. </p>
<p>While accepting the weaknesses of most definitions, we nonetheless need to develop and use what we can to try to understand if such a class exists, and what its political behaviour might be.</p>
<p>In this case, we started with a household income in excess of R11 000 a month. This is scarcely a princely income, but analysed in the context of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">“black African”</a> income generally, it certainly includes the “middle stata”. </p>
<p>To make the definition more nuanced we included those who self-identified as upper-middle class (or, in less than 2% of cases, “upper class”). </p>
<p>As the voting intention graphic below shows, even with this rough and ready definition, there seem to be different political dynamics at play for the black middle class.</p>
<h2>Voting patterns</h2>
<p>The graph makes a number of key issues clear. Firstly, the ANC has held – or regained - the loyalty of the majority of black middle class Gautengers, but only just. Where 63% of non-middle class black Africans in Gauteng (who were registered to vote) told us they will vote ANC, this dropped to 56% among the black middle class. Their loyalty is remarkable, given the past decade.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Part of the reason is the state of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the leading opposition party. The DA should be the natural home for an emergent and ambitious middle class, with its talk of equal opportunities, its general dislike of <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/Cadre-deployment-contradicts-NDP-DA-20130508">cadre deployment</a> and its strident attacks on ANC corruption. However, the DA is deeply divided - over race. </p>
<p>The DA committed policy <em>seppuku</em> as the election approached, with its members and <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mmusi-maimane-feels-pressure-as-white-privilege-race-row-rocks-da-20180506">commentators freely attacking party leader</a> Mmusi Maimane over the issue for fear of alienating their traditional, rather tribal, white voter base. Any mention of race, or redress, or race-based inequality, it seems, was to be banished - while asking those at the receiving end of racism to vote DA. </p>
<p>The signal to black middle class South Africans was clear: fears that the DA remained a “white” party, or a party in hock to white interests, remained; and they were unlikely to be terribly welcome. This remarkable pre-election behaviour split the uneasy alliance of those previously opposed to Zuma and everything he and the ANC represented before Cyril Ramaphosa became the party leader. It seems to have driven those who dipped their toes in DA waters back to the ANC fold, or into the arms of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or - for a significant number - into the political wilderness.</p>
<p>The ANC has never been able to sustain a strong appeal to higher educated or higher income voters. The DA has now fallen back dramatically in these areas, and the graphic makes it clear that the EFF hold more appeal to black middle class voters than the DA. Whether this is because of their <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2121794/malemas-membership-of-exclusive-inanda-club-divides-opinion/">strident opposition</a> to racism, or is done to fire warning salvos across the bows of both ANC and DA, the result is that the DA and EFF are fighting for the same small portion of black middle class votes - which are unavailable to the ANC - albeit from vastly different ideological positions. </p>
<p>The ANC continues to enjoy the lion’s share of black middle class votes from those willing to vote. But for how long?</p>
<h2>The apathy</h2>
<p>While 67% of black middle class voters do intend to vote, a third will stay at home on 8 May, cursing all political parties for failing to represent their interests, according to the survey. Chunks of the black middle class may vote, but far from enthusiastically. And a great many will not vote.</p>
<p>Among those who said they would vote, according to our survey results, 17% “don’t know” (or won’t tell) who they will vote for – even though many had previously overcome their unhappiness at the perceived “whiteness” of the DA:</p>
<p>And, as commentator Nkateko Mabasa <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-04-23-as-i-experience-class-mobility-will-i-protect-my-interests-like-the-das-black-middle-class/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=SaveLater&utm_campaign=daily-email-alert">puts it</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>although most black South Africans will continue to regard the DA as a white party … there is a growing number of black middle-class liberals who are tired of being ashamed for being regarded as “coconuts” [black on the outside, white on the inside].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maimane was a very powerful magnet for black middle class voters, but as his party rounded on him over race, white privilege and the need to maintain the white vote, Ramaphosa has inevitably exerted his own magnetic pull. He is charismatic and emblematic of what the black middle class can achieve. It is therefore no surprise that DA support in this key segment has all but evaporated. </p>
<p>Those who will never forgive the ANC its past sins are either opting out or voting EFF. The question for the future is whether any current party can reflect the needs and aspirations of the black middle class - who, importantly, are black as well as middle class - or whether they represent the social base of some not-yet formed political party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Everatt received funding from donors for this survey, conducted on behalf of the African National Congress (Gauteng).</span></em></p>The black middle class are angry at their exclusion from mainstream economic activity.David Everatt, Head of Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022952018-09-03T14:01:11Z2018-09-03T14:01:11ZSouth Africa is paying a heavy price for dysfunctional local government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234431/original/file-20180831-195331-51qw2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Violent protests over the poor delivery of basic municipal services occur frequently in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Zweli Mkhize, recently painted a bleak picture about the state of local government. It should worry all South Africans, not only those suffering as a consequence of dysfunctional municipalities.</p>
<p>In his budget speech in Parliament in May Mkhize said that 87 municipalities – about a third of South Africa’s total of 257 – <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mkhize-87-municipalities-dysfunctional-require-urgent-intervention-20180515">“remain dysfunctional or distressed”</a>. He identified two problems. One set is systemic and relates to the size and structure of municipalities. The other is mismanagement due to “political instability or interference, corruption and incompetence”. </p>
<p>Whatever the causes of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-government-in-south-africa-is-in-crisis-how-it-can-be-fixed-97331">dire state</a> some municipalities are in, it is evident that this situation has a huge negative impact on society.</p>
<p>South African municipalities form the third sphere of government after the provinces and national government. In accordance with the <a href="http://localgovernmentaction.org.dedi6.cpt3.host-h.net/content/constitution-south-africa">Constitution</a>, they must be democratic, accountable institutions that provide a range of basic services to local communities, such as water and electricity.</p>
<p>They are also key institutions for the promotion of social and economic development, given their direct link to local communities. Successful municipalities are essential for the country’s prosperity.</p>
<h2>What dysfunctional looks like</h2>
<p>A number of characteristics are evident in dysfunctional municipalities. Firstly, there is very poor or no service delivery – in other words rubbish isn’t collected and basic services such as water supplies are patchy or non-existent. Another feature is that they suffer from serious financial problems such as low debt collection and huge overdue creditors’ payments. There is also always evidence of infrastructure, such as roads, deteriorating at a fast pace. </p>
<p>Communities in these areas often experience a range of problems that reflect this state of dysfunctionality. These include potholes; significant water losses due to infrastructure not being maintained; an increasing backlog in new infrastructure; financial mismanagement as well as fraud and corruption. </p>
<p>A second important impact is that service providers are affected. If a municipality doesn’t collect all the revenue due to it, it can’t pay its creditors or takes a very long time to do so.</p>
<p>An example of this is the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mkhize-87-municipalities-dysfunctional-require-urgent-intervention-20180515">R16 billion</a> owed by municipalities at the end of 2017 to Eskom, the country’s power utility. Smaller service providers, some of which are small and medium enterprises, could face serious liquidity problems if they don’t get paid. At worst they could go under.</p>
<p>The effect of all this is often <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-06-25-service-delivery-protests-turn-violent-at-embattled-eastern-cape-municipality/">civil unrest</a>. In the longer term consequences will be increasing uncertainty or even instability in affected communities and a spiralling financial crisis. And financial problems will have a snowball effect. This is because investors won’t be interested in investing and current businesses might decide to move elsewhere. This will mean that local economic development and much-needed job creation won’t get off the ground.</p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>In addressing systemic issues, there needs to be a thorough investigation into the structure, size and types of municipality and their governance structures. This should ideally be done by independent experts on behalf of the government.</p>
<p>This should be directed to the overall improvement of the design of local government. And it should also take into account the fast-changing, technology-driven environment in which we live. </p>
<p>In reflecting on the current state of affairs two potential scenarios – which I name after Beatles songs – are presented. </p>
<p>The first is a low road scenario. I have called this <a href="https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/cryingwaitinghoping.html">“Crying, Waiting, Hoping”</a>. The other is a high road scenario, which I have named “We can work it out”. </p>
<p>In the first scenario, bad governance continues. On the financial side this involves financial mismanagement, tender fraud, corruption, low debt collection and very slow payment of creditors. In this scenario services will deteriorate. Refuse will be collected less frequently and there will be more water losses due to old infrastructure not being maintained. In addition, more potholes will lead to more claims due to accidents. And finally, increasing dissatisfaction among the citizens which lead to more civil unrest.</p>
<p>If this went on for a prolonged period of time it could lead to the total collapse of a municipality. This in turn would require a long time and significant funding to get it into an acceptable functional state again. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=we+can+work+it+out+lyrics&rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&oq=%E2%80%98We+Can+Work+It+Out%E2%80%99&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.5054j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">“We Can Work It Out”</a> scenario envisages the successful prosecution of corrupt officials and councillors, cooperation across the political spectrum to create a stable organisational basis and a serious attempt by communities to help solve municipalities’ problems. They can do this by providing expertise and participating constructively in the rebuilding of their society. </p>
<p>In this scenario all available resources from all three spheres of government, the business community, academia and citizens would be used in a spirit of cooperation to work out solutions that can benefit society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Brand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s dysfuctional municipalities are characterised by very poor, or no delivery, of basic services such as refuse collection.Dirk Brand, Extraordinary Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021362018-08-29T14:18:15Z2018-08-29T14:18:15ZHow structural flaws contribute to the crisis in South Africa’s municipalities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233881/original/file-20180828-86129-1iao6ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vaal River in Gauteng, South Africa's richest province, is polluted.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jon Hrusa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dire state of municipal governance in South Africa has been <a href="https://www.news24.com/Opinions/IN-FOCUS/in-focus-zweli-mkhizes-4-point-plan-to-fix-municipalities-20180601">in the news</a> for much of this year. Recent events in <a href="http://www.emfuleni.gov.za/">Emfuleni Local Municipality</a>, an urban municipality with <a href="http://citypopulation.info/php/southafrica-admin.php?adm2id=GT421">more than 700 000 residents</a> in Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, show the extent of the problem.</p>
<p>The municipality, located to the south of Johannesburg, has been unable to settle water and electricity debts owing to the utilities <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/rand-water-threatens-to-cut-water-to-emfuleni-municipality-over-r419m-debt-20180411">Rand Water</a> and <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2018/07/24/eskom-emfuleni-municipality-at-loggerheads-over-debt">Eskom</a>. This has led to services to residents being reduced or cut. Lack of infrastructure maintenance has further bedevilled the delivery of water and electricity, as well as rubbish removal. </p>
<p>Sewage spills <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/raw-sewerage-run-on-streets-and-taps-remains-dry-as-emfuleni-water-issues-continue-16249851">have plagued suburbs</a> and <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/science-and-environment/2018-07-31-emfuleni-faces-catastrophe-as-sewage-threatens-crops-and-tourism/">severely polluted the Vaal River</a> - the main source of drinking water in the province that is also crucial to its tourism and agriculture. The municipality’s entire basic vehicle fleet was recently <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/emfuleni-municipality-vehicles-repossessed/">repossessed by creditors</a>.</p>
<p>In June, the Gauteng Provincial government placed the municipality under <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/emfuleni-work-progress">financial administration</a>. </p>
<p>Emfuleni is not alone. The national minister responsible for municipalities recently said 31% of the country’s municipalities are <a href="http://www.cogta.gov.za/?p=3447">“dysfunctional”</a>, and another 31% “almost dysfunctional”. He went on to say that many South African municipalities are battling with financial management as well as good governance and <a href="http://www.cogta.gov.za/?p=3447">administration</a>.</p>
<p>Given its extensive infrastructure and a large tax base, Emfuleni is the kind of municipality that has little excuse not to function well. If it is failing, how could less developed municipalities thrive?</p>
<h2>Who is to blame?</h2>
<p>It’s tempting to blame the government for the municipality’s troubles.</p>
<p>According to the National Treasury’s <a href="https://municipalmoney.gov.za/profiles/municipality-GT421-emfuleni/">municipal finance data website</a>, Emfuleni had a healthy cash balance in 2015. But it then fell by over a third in 2016, before collapsing in 2017. While the municipality did have problems with wasteful expenditure and budget <a href="https://municipalmoney.gov.za/profiles/municipality-GT421-emfuleni/">overspending before,</a> things got much worse after the local government elections in August 2016.</p>
<p>The municipality has also been experiencing political turmoil. The previous mayor resigned in 2017 amid a sex scandal and rumours of <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-11-21-anc-gauteng-welcomes-resignation-of-emfuleni-mayor-mofokeng/">financial mismanagement</a>. <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-06-05-da-accuses-anc-of-running-emfuleni-municipality-into-the-ground/">Opposition parties</a> and <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/emfuleni-local-minicipality-makhosi-khoza-outa/">civil society organisations</a> blame the council and mayor, who are from the governing African National Congress, for the municipality’s problems. </p>
<p>But it’s also necessary to look beyond people and politics, and consider whether structural factors have contributed to the crisis. Emfuleni’s problems perhaps point to flaws in the way in which local government in South Africa is structured and financed.</p>
<h2>Raising revenue</h2>
<p>Emfuleni’s cash shortage has partly been blamed on poor collection of <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/emfuleni-intervention-to-focus-on-revenue-recovery-makhura">revenue from service charges</a>. This highlights the extent to which South African towns depend on income from service delivery. <a href="https://municipalmoney.gov.za/profiles/municipality-GT421-emfuleni/">Municipal finance data</a> show that Emfuleni generated about 85% of its own income in the 2016/2017 financial year. (The rest came from its equitable share of national tax revenue and grants from national government). Most of its self-raised revenue came from service charges.</p>
<p>A budget that depends on recovering service debt means that the ability to run the municipality depends on how much residents can consume and pay for. This is neither stable nor sustainable.</p>
<p>A number of factors affect these revenue streams. The first is that a <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/culture-of-non-payment-threatens-stability-of-municipal-finances-treasury-20180308">culture of non-payment</a> is pervasive among residents. Secondly, service revenue is also often affected by supply side constraints, such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/the-inherent-problem-of-municipal-financing-20180421">water scarcity</a> or power cuts. And lastly, a revenue stream based on consumption also assumes that most residents can afford services. This isn’t always the case.</p>
<p>Emfuleni has gone through tough economic times in recent years. Unemployment has risen sharply and some better off residents have moved away. This does not bode well for service demand, or the ability to pay for what has been consumed.</p>
<p>The problem won’t go away unless municipalities find less volatile ways of balancing the books. A greater allocation from national government would be one route. So would raising money through loans and imposing taxes or development levies on businesses.</p>
<p>But the problem goes beyond money. </p>
<h2>Unclear lines of accountability</h2>
<p>At least some of the crisis in Emfuleni has been down to mismanagement. This calls into question how municipalities are run. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitution</a>, local governments have both legislative and executive functions. This means that there isn’t a clear separation of powers between municipal executive leaders (mayors) and the councils to which they report. </p>
<p>On top of this, municipal powers are closely tied to administrative functions, meaning that there is an overlap between political and bureaucratic structures in municipalities. </p>
<p>The close connection between different functions makes sense. But it makes lines of accountability unclear. This isn’t helped by the fact that municipalities can chose from different governance models. This means that accountability works differently in almost every municipality. </p>
<p>This may well have added to Emfuleni’s woes. The municipality has an elected municipal council and an executive mayor system. It is further part of the <a href="http://www.sedibeng.gov.za/">Sedibeng District Municipality</a>, with which it shares responsibility for many of its functions.</p>
<p>There are concerns that executive mayor systems give too much power to mayors and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-25-municipalities-must-change-the-way-they-are-governed/">not enough to councils</a>. There is also insufficient accountability, and flows of information, between local and <a href="https://www.salga.org.za/Documents/NMMF%202016/Reporting%20between%20Districts%20and%20Locals.pdf">regional municipalities</a>.</p>
<p>South African municipal governance is also bedevilled by the influence of political parties over councils, mayors and the administration. In Emfuleni, for instance, the mayor initially resigned when the council was put under administration, but then withdrew his resignation after <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/anc-says-emfuleni-mayor-back-on-the-job-20180608">the ANC intervened</a>.</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>South Africa may have to consider reducing the governance options available to municipalities, to ensure more uniformity and easier oversight. It also needs to devise uniform, simple and clear, internal accountability structures for local government. And it should seriously consider legally regulating the line between political parties and the civil service.</p>
<p>Finally, provincial intervention in local government affairs is not ideal, and should only happen in extreme cases – as has been the case in Emfuleni. But it would be better if this was triggered by an event - such as a municipality falling into arrears with the water or electricity supplier – rather than waiting for political discretion to be exercised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marius Pieterse receives funding from Wits University and the NRF. </span></em></p>South Africa’s local governments lack a clear separation of legislative and executive powers.Marius Pieterse, Professor of Law, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.