Al-Qalam 
By Imraan Buccus
South Africa is in a steadily worsening crisis. From mass unemployment to an economy that can’t grow to the electricity fiasco, it’s all a real mess.
It’s clear to all that we cannot carry on as we are. With the most likely outcome of the election next year being the growing influence of small toxic parties and the instability that comes with coalitions the electoral decline of the ANC doesn’t offer much hope for any sort of reduction in the mess that we are in.
Our crisis has many dimensions, including years of austerity, massive corruption and the ANC’s penchant for ‘cadre deployment’ rather than appointing the best people to do important jobs. The latter has meant that many people in government jobs do not have the qualifications and experience to do their jobs to an adequate standard.
But despite the escalating emigration of skilled people we do still have world class skills in South Africa, usually located in the universities, NGOs and business. Any serious attempt to find a way out of our crisis will have to make use of these skills, including in business.
For this reason the news that business has agreed to come to the rescue to work alongside the state to address loadshedding, performance of trains and ports and address the crippling levels of crime is very good news.
The work streams that have been created have been greeted with widespread approval across many sectors in society. Of course, this is in light of the skills and resources present in corporate SA with the very best having been brought in to help save SA – from Anglo American head Nolitha Fakude to Toyota’s CEO Andrew Kirby and Sasol’s Feetwood Grobler.
However there are at least two reasons for caution. One is the Andre de Ruyter debacle at Eskom. Parachuting in a business executive can’t resolve a deep structural rot, and when that executive is openly hostile to the traditions of the liberation movement things are never going to get anywhere.
Bringing in skills from business will only help to take us forward if there is a deep commitment on both sides to find common ground and work together in the common interest.
However the pitiful weakness of Cyril Ramaphosa as a president, and his cowardly refusal to confront the rot in his own party, and the institutions that it has populated with its people, is not encouraging. One can only hope that the imminent possibility of a loss of its electoral majority will concentrate his mind, and that of others in the party, to finally act to cut out the rot.
A second reason for caution is that while business has desperately needed skills it is still business, and business has a particular view of the world centred around the drive to make profit. An approach to, say, electricity, centred around profit maximization would get the lights back on, but would also see electricity as a commodity rather than a social good. This is fundamentally problematic in any society but potentially disastrous in a society with mass unemployment and impoverishment.
For this reason we need social pressure to stop the ANC from continuing with its failed policy of ‘cadre deployment’ and to support any initiatives in support of excellence and against corruption emerging from within the ruling party and the state. At the same time we need oversight over the contribution of business to ensure that business stays in its lane and focuses on improving efficiency and doesn’t try to redirect policy in the direction of the neoliberal commitment to turn to commodifying everything.
There are forces within the ANC and the state, largely the old Mbekists, committed to anti-corruption and building a professional civil service. They should be supported but the bulk of the party is rotten and so pressure on the ANC will have to largely come from civil society, the media, those trade unions with the capacity to take up this challenge and the popular organising that exists in parts of the country.
Large parts of the media is neoliberal in orientation so pressure on business to focus on providing expertise and not policy direction will have to come from civil society, trade unions, and grassroots organising.
Dr Buccus is Al-Qalam editor.
