German statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe famously said that “misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness”.
On February 10, as President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his state of the nation address (Sona), South Africans were left with mixed feelings. They ranged from people like DA leader John Steenhuisen praising the speech as straight out of the DA’s manifesto, to critics saying the speech was thin on accountability relating to the government’s work to improve the state of the nation.
This speech was distinguishable from previous addresses made by Ramaphosa as it was high on details and deadlines — deadlines like the 100 days target for creating a new social consensus; the commitment by communications regulator Icasa to begin the long-overdue spectrum auctioning; and the pledge to review the visa regime to improve the process and expand the available visa categories in an effort to attract more international tourists and high-quality skills. It appeared at first glance to be a more workman-like speech, setting goals as opposed to the dreams shared during previous Sonas.
A closer look at these details and deadlines, however, reveals concerning features of governance that are taking root in our body politic. These concerns include low levels of reporting, indicative of poor monitoring and evaluation, more amorphous references to economic master plans that are short on detail, and the use of anecdotes rather than data-rich evidence for why certain policy positions are considered successful.
These trends in positioning amount to sleights of hand by the president that mask complex and consequential failures in state functioning. The most concerning feature of this Sona are pronouncements that amount to less input and work by government itself on SA’s pressing challenges in favour of tactics that defer responsibility to people and sectors outside the state.
Through more commissions and task teams, they take otherwise delegated functions from government departments and ministers to the office of the presidency and delay decision-making on social and economic policy issues such as the implementation of a basic income grant by proverbially kicking the can down the road, with no clear position in sight.
The most prominent example of political and state leadership handing over its responsibility to lead society and intervene in fixing problems was the bold claim made by Ramaphosa that it is the private sector and not government that has the responsibility to create jobs. This was startling not only because it veered so drastically away from previous promises made by the same president to spearhead the creation of millions of jobs, or job opportunities, through government initiatives. While many of these have failed, the idea that the solution is to claim that it is not the responsibility of government amounts to a dereliction of duty as opposed to a delegation of duty.
No-one, not even the more state-centric ideologues, would ever claim that it is the government's job to employ every person. The National Development Plan, which this president helped write, states that we should aspire to become a state that plays an active role in guaranteeing that jobs are created. This should happen both through public employment programmes and regulations as opposed to suggestions, punctuated by a wink and a nod, that the private sector “strongly consider” measures that are work intensive.
No-one, not even the more state-centric ideologues, would ever claim that it is the government's job to employ every person.
Businesses exist for profit, not job creation. It is counterintuitive to suggest that businesses prioritise jobs over profits, hence it is incumbent on the state and political leaders that work for the public good to use state powers to compel businesses to adopt job-intensive practices, while leading the way with direct state interventions. That duty should never be relegated.
Ramaphosa is known to have coined the term “nine wasted years”, in reference to the presidency of former president Jacob Zuma. This period has been lamented for years, for the use by dodgy actors of state powers with nefarious intent to hollow out the state’s capacity and resources.
Yet, it is increasingly obvious that what we have in this sixth administration is a hollowing out of the state through the deference of state power to task teams and project management desks that are not building state capacity and offer the levers of state to people not accountable to the nation. Political leaders ought not to be elected only for them to defer decision-making to non-state actors.
So, though we can debate the damage done by intentional abuses of power, a greater threat might perhaps be the neglect of power by a president who seems to give it to others while watching the slow decay of the state.
Editor's note:
This article was published in today's newspaper under a wrong by-line, the author is Tessa Dooms. We apologise for the error.
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