9 November 2009
editorial
Johannesburg — IT MAY not matter that much whether the president, or a minister in the Presidency, is in charge of the proposed national planning commission. But it matters that if the commission is established, it does not prove to be yet another ineffectual and expensive bureaucracy.
And the danger of the debate around the green paper on planning is that it seems to have become so personalised that it threatens to lose the plot -- that the idea of long-range strategic planning for SA could become so diluted that the commission, and its accompanying committees, could end up being all but pointless. Some folk in the ruling alliance are clearly determined to use the planning commission debate as an opportunity to bash Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel and promote the virtues of Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel. A report by the African National Congress national executive committee (NEC) policy committee last week certainly gave Manuel a less prominent role than that proposed by the green paper.
The document proposed that the planning commission be chaired by the president or his deputy, rather than by the minister in the presidency in charge of planning, whose role would instead be to oversee the work of the planning secretariat.
It's not clear, however, that a lesser role for Manuel would necessarily mean a greater role for Patel -- not unless the NEC has so narrow a view of planning that it believes strategic planning and economic policy are one and the same.
In some very broad definition, perhaps, everything is about economics and economic policy is about everything. But the planning commissions of other countries take a rather broader view of their mandate. And the green paper certainly envisages that SA's planners will be looking at issues such as energy security and energy sources -- whether we build more coal-fired power stations or go nuclear, and what those choices could mean for carbon emissions and for electricity pricing. The green paper also suggests a range of other long- term issues that lend themselves to investigation, such as the availability of water, SA's demographic trajectory and long-term choices about cities and public transport.
Those are the issues strategic planning for a country should be about. However a planning commission, or planning function, is structured. Whoever leads it, what it needs to do is to look, systematically and creatively, at the big-picture issues that will shape the future.
As the green paper puts it, one of the things the commission would have to do is to "prevent government being trapped in its own institutional preoccupations". The planners need to pull themselves out of the day-to-day business of the government to look at what choices need to be made for the long term. Those choices, in turn, must shape policymaking in the shorter term, ensuring that policies are consistent with where government wants to see SA in the next 20 years.
The trouble with the debate over the green paper is that the ruling alliance seems to be more concerned about giving everyone a say and ensuring no cabinet minister is more important than any other minister, than it is to ensure the planning commission actually does anything worthwhile.
It suggests, for example, that Nedlac co-ordinate a planning advisory group. That's surely a recipe for impotence, given Nedlac's patchy record and its inability to effect consensus on tough issues. The NEC also suggests that the planning commission be made up of the chairs of the various cabinet clusters, plus some "civil society representatives". But would such a body raise challenging questions about SA in 2025 or would it get stuck on more immediate efforts to co-ordinate the short-term plans of various government departments? The NEC is also most concerned that the commission should do planning only -- not policy. But if planning is not going to shape policy, what's the point?
If the ANC is not careful, this may prove to be another of those good ideas that drowns in personality politics.
Long-range strategic planning for SA could become so diluted that the commission ... could end up being all but pointless
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