Rhoda Kadalie
24 April 2008
column
Johannesburg — THE front-page story in The Weekender last weekend on the exodus of South African doctors was alarming. According to Productivity SA and the 2007 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, SA is among the 55 countries with the highest brain drains and worst skills shortages.
On nearly every major international index, SA is either lagging or sinking deeper into the quagmire. This is hardly surprising. It is the logical conclusion of a deeply failed education system unable to compete in maths, science and technology with other African countries, despite its more advanced status. It is the result of a failed affirmative action policy that alienates skilled labour from our shores, and an aggressive black economic empowerment policy that promotes black wealth by stealth, regardless of merit. And more seriously, it is about professionals choosing life over death, in a country where murder, robbery, rape and hijacking have become national sports.
There is nothing more hurtful than seeing South African-educated doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and engineers leave for first world countries such as Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. It is too simplistic to say those who emigrate are unpatriotic. Who wants to leave family, friends and the country of one's birth, especially when it is one of the most beautiful in the world? Our hospitals are in steady decline, the clinics are no better and the burgeoning burden of disease makes working in healthcare a living nightmare. And even though the health minister has made primary healthcare a priority, local clinics are the places where the dignity of many, especially the poor, is regularly affronted and their health rights infringed.
Equally, municipalities all over SA are collapsing due to the exodus of engineers and technicians , worsening the precarious sanitation conditions in informal settlements and the rural areas and causing the development of infrastructure to lag behind. The 2007-2008 National Capacity Assessment Report, released by the Municipal Demarcation Board, revealed that "74% of district municipalities performed less than 50% of their functions. In the same period 53% of all local municipalities performed less than 50% of their functions." This same report reveals that most municipal managers lacked the experience to perform optimally, a situation worsened by the fact that a large number of senior positions are vacant.
On the Human Development Index, we have actually moved downwards due to our shocking infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy rates. With 8-million people infected with tuberculosis and more than 5-million with HIV/AIDS, President Thabo Mbeki and his cabinet have been tolerated for far too long. Under his leadership, every public institution has been destroyed -- the public protector, the Land Bank, the Independent Complaints Directorate, the SABC, Telkom and Eskom.
This rapid slide into chaos can only be halted by Mbeki's competitor, Jacob Zuma, and his cohorts. Zuma's victory at Polokwane has to be a victory for the salvation of this country, if it means the beginning of a new dispensation of public service, citizen participation, good governance, political competition, service delivery and a selfless leadership that puts the people first.
The problems that plague our country can be addressed. Two weeks ago, the Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust hosted a two-day workshop on skills training, education and employment, where our award-winning projects presented their examples of best practice to an audience of 90 delegates. Over two days we witnessed solutions to the maths, science and engineering problems in the country; to the exodus of doctors and nurses; to the literacy and numeracy problem in the rural areas; to basic adult education; and the use of arts and crafts in job creation. This workshop demonstrated that there are African solutions for African problems. We need look no further than the Impumelelo database.
Kadalie is a human rights activist based in Cape Town.
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