JUSTICE MALALA: Decoding Lesufi’s jobs scam

For two months, my jaw has been on the floor with shock at the Gauteng government’s economic ignorance, idiocy and cynicism. It is only now, eight weeks after the debacle began, that I have found the strength to recover my wits, calm myself down, and write about this. It is tragic.

On June 16, Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi assembled his cabinet and their blue-light brigades and rushed to the Johannesburg Expo Centre at Nasrec. More than 5,000 poor, desperate, unemployed people — some had arrived at 6am or earlier in the freezing weather — were waiting when Lesufi got there.

The premier had announced that, in commemoration of the June 1976 student uprisings, the provincial government would hire 8,000 people as part of its Nasi iSpani (Here is a job) campaign.

“We are filling all vacant and funded permanent jobs across all departments within the Gauteng provincial government as we open opportunities for all. Our mission is to crush unemployment and hopelessness in our province,” Lesufi had tweeted.

There is so much that is wrong with this campaign I don’t know where to start. First, why were 8,000 vacancies not filled? In a country where the unemployment rate, if you use the expanded definition that includes those discouraged from seeking work, is 42.4%, why are you waiting for a huge event to employ gardeners and drivers? Why do you need to wait to fill a cleaner’s job when youth unemployment is at 62.1%?

It is the economic ignorance of the exercise that left me deflated. Lesufi said: “Our mission is to crush unemployment and hopelessness in our province.” How can any serious political player believe government employment is a way to “crush” joblessness?

This is what is at the core of our national malaise. If Lesufi, one of the ANC’s rising stars, believes the government will deliver jobs, then we are in trouble. The government creates the conditions for business to thrive. Business hires people, and unemployment is reduced.

We are going to use our tendering system as a new mechanism of recruitment

—  Panyaza Lesufi

It is telling that a few weeks later Lesufi proceeded to add to the conditions that kill business in South Africa. He said: “Those who are tendering, for you to get tenders you must tell us how many people you will employ and, on the basis of that from the database, we will allocate the number of people who need to be employed. We are going to use our tendering system as a new mechanism of recruitment.”

Please, someone save me from the nightmare of the Gauteng government telling a business who to hire. Last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Sipho Nkosi to his office to help reduce red tape. I wish Nkosi — one of the greats of post-1994 business — luck. He needs it. Lots of it.

The truth is that this is not an honest attempt to get people into jobs. It’s a cynical election scam in which you repackage old opportunities as new.

One of EFF leader Julius Malema’s key strengths, and a gift to this democracy, is that he knows the ANC so well that he can see its scams from a mile away. He identified this one early on, saying of those who have been given jobs by Lesufi: “They are hired because they are members of the ANC. They are hired because they are campaigners of the ANC.”

Here is final proof that Lesufi’s campaign is a cynical election scam: last month, he said 1.2-million applications had been received for the 8,000 jobs he advertised. How is his campaign going to put a dent in that 1.2-million number? How is it going to “crush” joblessness?

Job creation is tough. It requires the government to foster a climate that is conducive to investment by ensuring certainty about future policy moves, showing dexterity in addressing investor concerns, committing to the rule of law, and a host of other deliberate moves.

Lesufi’s scheme is nothing but an attempt to garner support for the ANC in the run-up to the elections. It augurs badly for Gauteng, a province that should be, and used to be, the economic engine of the country.