JEREMIAH KLAAS | Mantashe, please influence ANC to steer SA in the right direction

Dear minister Gwede Mantashe, let me congratulate you on your recent re-election as the ANC chairperson. I want to highlight that I saw it coming, though. This is due to the view I hold that you are the Grandmaster of Politics in SA, in chess terms.

In 2027, two decades after Polokwane, you will probably be the only Top 6 ANC official to have served for 20 years in the party’s leadership structure now known as the Top 7.

Among the tasks your role should include must be unifying the ANC and bringing it back to its glorious days of putting the interests of the people first. The first key area is augmenting the delegate standards to that of individuals with the capacity to contribute intellectually and academically within the ANC during conferences. The second is addressing the problem of factions within the ANC. Factions leave the party paralysed and in a state where it only fights and eats itself from its core. The declining results from general and local elections bear testimony to this.

Another reason I write this letter is the caliber of leaders the ANC deploys to run state institutions meant to deliver on the ANC mandate. My qualms are that ANC policies and consequently government programmes are either designed or executed in such a manner that we will remain a struggling developing nation even in the next 25 years.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has five levels, with the lowest level being the physiological needs that include food, water and helter. Only a handful of our people can graduate outside this level as many South Africans are battling poverty and unemployment. Many of our people are hopelessly stuck at this low level for most if not all their lives.

There is a strong case to also place our country at this basic level in the economic context. It seems to me that a majority of leaders that come out of the ANC are leaders who are not able to take SA to the next level economically - a level where we start conceptualising ways to accomplish economic feats similar to those of aggressively developing Asian countries such as Singapore.

These countries have evolved from only focusing on just providing electricity, fixing potholes, repairing damaged or aging infrastructure and providing for an increasing social grant bill and social housing to capacitating their people by giving them better economic opportunities that enable them to better provide for themselves.

Some of these Asian countries are at a point where their efforts are focused on delivering world class infrastructure, which includes skyscrapers, bullet trains, first-class health Infrastructure and technological developments that enable them to build products that compete globally.

On the other hand we talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), smart cities, innovation, industrialisation and the beneficiation of our minerals but we have very little to show for this despite the resources deployed and time spent on initiatives. Some of our municipalities are even battling with delivering the most basic of services such as proper working toilets. Instead, we celebrate fixing potholes.

Minister, I implore you to use your function as chairperson to influence your organisation in the right direction and help it acquire the capacity to shift its focus to eventually getting the country to elevate its position from that of a developing nation.

To do this the ANC needs to undertake meaningful reflection and self-assessment with a clear intention to fixing what is broken. The ANC needs to create an enabling environment for collaboration, particularly with people who are not just card carrying members of the ANC but people who are simply interested in getting the country to work for all its citizens.

The ANC needs to remember that millions of South Africans have still entrusted it with their votes to help make SA a better country. I understand that 28 years is not enough time to reverse the impact of decades and centuries of problems, however, 28 years is enough time to show that the trajectory we are on is a healthy one and that there are signs that we will get there.

* Klaas is a Sowetan reader