We can no longer think of South Africa’s problems as being isolated from each other. Tackling one specific problem is well-nigh impossible. All are linked. We don’t have an Eskom problem. Or a logistics or Transnet problem. Or a water or water affairs department problem.
If you are at Eskom, you can’t bring in a security expert to solve the sabotage problem and think all is hunky-dory. The mines that supply Eskom with coal have the same problem. The distribution network has it too. The entire chain has the same problem: criminality at all levels and at every step. Appointing a new Eskom CEO is like applying Band-Aid on the arm of a child bitten by a malaria-bearing mosquito. You need to solve the malaria problem, not the pain of the mosquito sting.
You need the police minister to be involved at every step of every problem. Yet he has a problem. Every level of policing in South Africa, from the cop on the beat to the forensics department to the crime intelligence division, is corrupted or on the verge of collapse due to corruption.
Yes, there are islands of excellence. Yet even they are close to buckling under the pressure. The judiciary is attacked by those trying to dodge their day in court. The media is under constant and malevolent attack. Institutions such as the South African Revenue Service and parts of the National Prosecuting Authority, for instance the Special Investigating Unit under Andy Mothibi, are constantly under attack too.
There was a time when you could say “We need to fix the schooling system” and get a reasonable time to explain your proposal. Yet you cannot even begin to speak about the schooling system without talking about the grip the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union and other public sector trade unions have on the civil service. Indeed, the problem that paralyses basic education is the same that paralyses the police, for example, and the department of home affairs and others: the inordinate and malign power of the trade unions and their stranglehold on the ANC and its electoral fortunes.
This is the challenge for whoever wins the election in 2024. You cannot win and then tinker with the system. You must completely overhaul it. If the ANC wins next year, it may try to tinker. That would be folly, for the administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa has over the past five years tinkered — and failed. Instead of things getting better, in many instances they have become worse. Ramaphosa’s administration has only one positive left, which is that it means well. Other than its intentions, it is a disaster.
South Africa can’t fix what the ANC has broken. We must remake it
The opposition has to think of the system — and a reform agenda — in a holistic, interlinked manner. The collapse of our state enterprises, our cities and towns, are all linked to the ANC culture of mediocrity, of not caring, of excusing every cadre’s sloth and corruption, and of putting party unity above all else.
A return to excellence will need a sweeping, focused programme that digs deep into the innards of the governance system and remakes it. South Africa can’t fix what the ANC has broken. We must remake it.
The pressing issue is time. It has taken 15 years for the system to go from being merely problematic to the point where it has become almost malevolent. It will take several years to halt the rot, and several more years to turn things towards excellence. The five years of a new administration will need spine, commitment and maximum use of the tools of the constitution to bring about change.
It will be tough, but it is not impossible. It will take time, but the fruit of the change will be visible in three to four years.
Most importantly, it will take leadership, but not a messiah. It will take the work of a group of people, highly motivated and skilled, to lead South Africa out of this morass. But it won’t be a Nelson Mandela or a Barack Obama. It will be a systematic, programmatic application of new thinking, new policy, new energy and vigour.
The slothful ways of the past 15 years must be uprooted and cast aside for our country to prosper again.
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