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South Africa: Opportunity And Danger As the Wheel Turns
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
COLUMN
13 May 2008
Posted to the web 13 May 2008
Karima Brown
Johannesburg
AS WHAT little remains of President Thabo Mbeki's legacy melts into thin air, and his time in office draws to a close, a friend quipped that it has now become almost as difficult to find a supporter of the man as it was to find a supporter of the National Party after 1994.
Mbeki is now well and truly yesterday's man, reduced to ridicule as the public learns more and more about his machinations -- even outright lies -- in matters of state. Mbeki's folly grows daily as we learn how he sat on report after report, be it on the crisis in Zimbabwe, the Scorpions, or his attempts to shield disgraced national police commissioner Jackie Selebi. Mbeki, once held up by so many as a man with vision and integrity, has now become an object of derision. It is ironic that the most strident criticism is coming from those among the chattering classes who once believed he could do no wrong.
How the wheel has turned.
But no amount of finger-pointing, however gleeful, will address the key question of how to undo the mess. Moreover, any attempt to deal with the serious governance challenges is likely to be hobbled by Mbeki and his crew of diehards, who seem determined to continue as if Polokwane had never happened.
The governance summit proposed by the African National Congress (ANC)-led alliance at the weekend is the first systematic attempt to try to plan beyond Mbeki on the part of the ANC and its allies. The South African Communist Party's input around possible restructuring of key government departments and ministries, such as possibly splitting minerals and energy and land from agriculture, is certainly food for thought. So too is the proposal about the creation of a central planning ministry meant to co-ordinate key strategic interventions aligning infrastructure, industrial policy, energy policy, macroeconomic stability, safety and security and international trade.
However, all of these proposals are premised on the notion that the state has the capacity to drive these initiatives, when this is simply not the case. The dearth of skills across provinces and in the municipalities will hamper efforts to reconfigure state departments, never mind creating new ones. The constitutional requirements on equity employment also poses huge challenges.
Many personnel managers are not appointing key personnel because they can't find black candidates. This often leads to inaction because performance bonuses are tied to equity targets. Thus managers will rather leave crucial posts for engineers, water sanitation managers and the like vacant than mess with the point system on equity. This has disastrous consequences for the delivery of basic services.
The proposed governance summit is a good idea, but there is a danger it will try to reinvent the wheel, and entertain all manner of policy discussions that will again serve only to delay service provision .
Mbeki's administration has proven how adept the government can be at planning and not implementing. Project Consolidate, the intervention aimed at throwing 136 underperforming municipalities a lifeline, is a case in point. And if the party's handling of the SABC board crisis is anything to go by, the transition is not going to pretty. But the resolution of the SABC debacle, which has its roots in the internal wrangling of the ruling party, will be instructive. In many ways, the SABC drama is a microcosm of what is happening in government departments in all three spheres as the Mbeki crowd departs. As tempting as settling scores might be, it will serve no one's interests to use Mbeki's departure as a way to deal deathblows to political opponents.
All this will lead to is paralysis that results in citizens getting the short end of the stick. More importantly, it provides an opportunity for unprincipled types, of whom there are many in the new crowd, to get their hands on state largesse. The transition needs to be managed with the aim of undoing the shortcomings of Mbeki's time in office and making good on the ANC's promise of a better life for all.
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Brown is political editor.
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