Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
6 February 2004
(Page 3 of 3)
But you must remember that the regions in South Africa are not like the states in the United States. They have very little power. Most of what they do is delegated to them by central government. They have no tax-collecting powers. In fact, a local authority has more powers because it can charge rates. The provincial government can't charge rates. So it depends entirely on the central government for the money it spends.
Although there is a lot of excitement about who is premier of this or that, the reality is that we are not a federal country and the provinces are just administrative mechanisms. Although they are elected, they are really administrative agents of the central government. They are not like the states in Nigeria, for example. The state governments in Nigeria have real muscle, but not our provincial governments. They are not comparable.
How healthy is political life in South Africa? Because of the dominance of the ANC, there is an official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, but many people now say that South Africa is almost a one-party state.
Oh, that's totally untrue! First, the ANC is a very weak party. That's one of things many people do not know. The ANC depends, to a huge extent, on its civil society allies for the electorate that it has - especially the trade unions, especially the NGOs, the so-called civil society and, of course, the churches. That is why there is so much alarm when Archbishop Desmond Tutu disagrees with the ANC, because the churches bring huge constituencies to vote for the ANC. So the ANC is not the dominant party.
I'm trying to think of a good example: Nyerere's party. If you take Nyerere's party in Tanzania or Nkrumah's party in Ghana, those parties were not dependent on anyone for their muscle. They were the ones who formed the trade unions. In South Africa, it's the other way round. Our trade unions support the ANC, but they are totally independent of the ANC. They are friends, but they are independent.
There's no comparison between Nyerere's one-party state or Nkrumah's one-party state or Kaunda's one-party state to the ANC, because the ANC doesn't control civil society.
And yet the ANC looks unassailable in the elections. How healthy is that?
Well, I think what makes the ANC look unassailable - again you have to understand the role of government in South Africa. The role of government in South Africa, compared to the role of government in other African countries, is very different. Government in South Africa - relative to the rest of society in South Africa - is weak. Whereas government in other parts of Africa - if you take Ghana or Zambia, for example - government is very strong.
In most African countries, the largest single employer is government. In South Africa, it is estimated that the NGOs employ the same number of people as the South African government does. The private sector is far larger than the government. So the government in South Africa, although it looks powerful, is not powerful relative to the rest of society.
We have an enormous private sector, we have an enormous NGO sector, we have many, many sectors in our society, which have enormous power. So the role of government in South Africa is very different from government in most other African countries.
Looking in from outside, nobody, none of the other African countries nor western governments, would say that South Africa has a weak government, surely?
This is one of the problems. We don't understand our fellow African countries. They also don't understand us. Because they see this big country with these glittering skyscrapers, with this very confident ANC with 66 percent of the vote, they think, wow, this guy is so powerful.
Actually, relative to the social players of South Africa - if you take South African Breweries, this is a massive company.
Which is taking over Africa and the world -
Exactly! It is taking over Africa and the world. So now, the government, what is its power next to South African Breweries? Take De Beers, take Anglo-American Corporation, take companies like Shoprite Checkers - these are enormous corporations. Or take the unions. Cosatu has nearly two million members.
So people who don't understand South Africa - our fellow Africans - don't see that the government, when you look at it from outside, you see South African Airways, the government-owned company - but what you don't see are the enormous other players that are very powerful in South Africa.
Are South Africans interested in going to vote, are they interested in government and in the future of the country ten years after independence, liberation, freedom?
I'm going to vote! I think many South Africans are going to vote. But, again, the difference between us, as South Africans, and many of our fellow Africans is that the government doesn't play such an important role in our lives. I mean I never interact with the government. I have a private company which does business with other private companies, so what the government does is of marginal significance to me.
As long as the government looks after the poor, protects our borders, manages our currency properly, for most South Africans that's about all we want from our government. In terms of my own employment, in terms of my medical welfare, our government hasn't even got on top of the crime, so I have my own private security looking after my own home and so on and so forth.
The expectations of the people of their government are not as high as many people imagine, because government in South Africa is actually small. It has a big budget because we are a rich country, but it's not a big player - it's an important player - it's not the only player in the life of South Africans.
What about the New Partnership for Africa's Development, Nepad? President Mbeki is said to be the main architect of this new blueprint for African democracy and African Development. Is it going anywhere?
Well, Ofeibea, I once worked for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. Having worked at their secretariat in Lusaka, during the 80s, I have a practical knowledge of how intra-African cooperation works or doesn't work. I think our government is very idealistic. It doesn't know the reality and the complexity of running an organisation, of getting consensus in an organisation like Ecowas, like Comesa, like SADC. We are newcomers in that line of business. So we come with a lot of idealism and the question is that these are voluntary organisations of sovereign countries.
So to make inter-African institutions like Ecowas and SADC and what have you to work, you need a huge amount of consensus. We don't really spend the energy on building up the consensus. If you take Ecowas, Ecowas is dominated by Nigeria which means Nigeria is the one that has to be giving the concessions most of the time.
In South Africa we are not too keen to give concessions to our weak partners, not necessarily because the government doesn't want to, because other players don't. The unions, for example, may object to the concession that the government wants to give. But the union in this country is very powerful and it can stop the government from doing it.
It's a very complicated situation and Nepad may or may not be the saviour, the bible for Africa. Everything is in the implementation. How much are you prepared to invest in building the consensus and, more than anything else, in understanding what really are the problems of your neighbour? Because, many times in Africa, we cure a disease that doesn't exist and the one that exists we don't cure, because we tend to operate from the imagination rather than from science.
I'm going to ask you personally - you've returned from exile, you're successful and productive. What has been the most important thing that you've learnt coming home and what has ten years of liberation mean for you, Moeletsi Mbeki.
One of the most important things - now you're making me think about something that I haven't thought about - but to me what has been most important is that the last ten years have given me the opportunity to implement what I learnt. And what I learnt, I learnt from the rest of Africa, where I lived and worked in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. And I was at university in England with other African students. I was a member of African student associations, so I learnt a lot from them. I also learnt a lot from England. I was a student there, but I was also active in the politics in England, so I had a bank of experience which I am now using. So that is what has happened to me.
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