WeeklySA_AdminGOVERNANCE: Injustice failures, corruption, continue to drag SA into a huge hole of inequality and poverty
By Sandile Swana
Through its economic justice policy, the DA challenges all of us, though grudgingly, to accept equality economically, politically, and socially, and not allow ourselves to be divided by superficial differences of race or skin colour.
By now we all ought to know from science that all humans belong to one human race, one human species with no sub-species.
Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), Affirmative Action, American-styled Diversity-Equality-Inclusivity policies (DEI) and the DA’s economic justice policy are all rooted in the justifiable belief that South Africa has been made an unequal society based on race by the many apartheid laws and state-sponsored programmes of social, economic and political injustice through colonialism.
The US has had racial discrimination against Africans, Latinos and native Americans for the longest time, including slavery, genocide and land dispossession with continuing ramification the DEI was meant to address.
President Donald Trump is against economic justice even as defined by the DA, especially as it admits the root causes of economic injustice.
The time now has come for all South Africans to enjoy a comparable, equal and equitable quality of life and standard of living across all language groups.
More importantly, equality and equity must be experienced in real life, thus superficial intellectual differences must be replaced by pragmatic common purpose in South Africa across the political spectrum.
The DA states the following:
“The DA’s economic justice policy seeks to create an economically inclusive South Africa, free of any superficial differences between us. A just society in which economic opportunities are available to all and people have the capabilities to make use of those opportunities.”
This statement covers diversity (DEI)- freed of any superficial differences. These superficial or socially constructed differences among humans were created by policies of apartheid and colonialism.
However, we accept that people are free to enjoy their own religions, languages, culture, and nuances that are caused by geographics peculiarities across South Africa.
The statement also includes the word ‘inclusivity’ (I) – which means an economically inclusive South Africa. This means dissolving economic apartheid and the root causes of differences in income, wealth, skills and land ownership.
Equality (E) captured in the statement means a just society in which economic opportunities are available to all, and that people have the capabilities to make use of those opportunities.
In its statement, the DA makes it clear that the state and society must make sure that each person and each child or youth must be enabled to take full advantage of the opportuneness made available to them.
This means you cannot present opportunities before people when they have no underlying skills, social, physical, finance and other capital to be able to realise their potential in the real world.
People are developed to be made ready for all relevant opportunities and not simply told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
The white Afrikaners, the so-called ‘coloureds’ and Africans, were largely on equal footing at the start of industrialisation and urbanisation in the country.
However, different interventions over time equipped these cultural groups unequally to take full advantage of the emerging opportunities in the urban areas, more especially.
Disadvantage was introduced intentionally in order to create white supremacy and a racial hierarchy.
Any sober South African can know the following: the only thing is whether we can back it up with concrete results, to imagine that from 2025 to 2055, over a 30-year period, we can lift all South Africans to first world living standards.
An economically just society is one in which economic opportunities are available to all, and people have the capabilities to make use of those opportunities. We are not there yet.
South Africa continues to be still an economically unjust society. Due to a history of apartheid as well as governance failures and corruption in the democratic era, there are skewed and shrinking opportunities.
South Africa desperately needs a radically different approach to redress and inclusion.
Three decades of political freedom has not resulted in adequate improvement in the socioeconomic prospects of the black majority of South Africans.
Our country’s social stability and progress depend on urgently fostering economic inclusion for the millions of people who remain locked out of the economy due to historical injustices committed on the basis of race.
The DA economic justice policy racial capitalism and de facto economic apartheid are the current reality, accounting for what did we do wrong in the past 30 years. We deepened economic apartheid in South Africa according to the DA.
We know what stands in the way of economic inclusion – the longstanding inequalities which have their roots in an apartheid and colonial past.
These factors have been exacerbated by an incapable and captured and corrupt state.
The key drivers of inequality of opportunity in South Africa are well established. They include:
• A failed, crony state. Cadre deployment designed to politically capture the state at the expense of the people.
• Failure to professionalise the Public Service Commission
• Failure to implement Public Finance Management Act (PFMA)and Municipal Management Act (MFA) reports fully every year.
• Failure to adequately address escalating poverty and unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment.
• Macro-economic policy and growth budgets with capital investment of 30% to 40% of gross domestic product (GDP) – gross fixed capital formation.
• Low duration of time spent in education and low quality of educational outcomes.
• Spatial inequalities caused by apartheid spatial design, and perpetuated by failed land reform.
• Inequalities in healthcare budget provision.
• Childhood stunting.
• Redesign of black townships and villages for high productivity, academic success, healthcare, nutrition and human development.
Generally, the same standards enjoyed by the rural whites must be enjoyed by the rural blacks and the same in urban areas.
South African white human development is equal and often better than many European countries.
Wealth inequality caused by low savings and investments, as well as the fact that the majority of black South Africans were prevented from accumulating intergenerational wealth.
The breakdown of the family values among the African people adds to the human development challenges.
With regard to social policy, budgeting and town planning, redevelopment of black households and culture around wealth creation and preservation, the Indian/Asian Community in South Africa and in the US has proved that developing the family unit, family businesses, and the culture of long-term productivity causes long-term wealth.
South Africa has had a history of legislated discrimination. The country needs to pass legislation and budgets to dissolve all vestiges of apartheid.
The DA has conflated issues. For example, BEE has been confused with the practice of overpricing in state procurement – which we know is strictly driven by corruption and unprofessional procurement.
That problem is well documented and there are solutions which can save us about R6bn to R9bn per month under the auspices of the chief procurement officer at the national Treasury.
All parties must insist on the full implementation of those solutions. The appointment of unsuitable people has never been the culture of any of the black population.
There are enough qualified black people in the country to attend to any task. The coalition of the corrupt encompasses ANC cadres, McKinsey, Bain, IBM, top audit firms, EOH, Thales, Daimler Chrysler and many multinational corporations who needed corrupt state employees inserted into the public service even under false pretences of affirmative action and BEE.
That practice is not part of economic justice policy promoted by the DA, existing BEE legislation or any other sober South African.
Every problem affecting poor economic and state performance must be addressed directly and not be confused with BEE.
We cannot run away from the fact that the principal object of economic justice, BEE, must be to make the entire population enjoy the same living standards as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, not some minimalist programme such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Our GDP needs to start motoring like those of Vietnam and the Asian Tigers at 6% to 13% GDP growth. We must start moving away from mickey mouse programmes.
The private sector must be focused on making profits and paying taxes.
The social investment programmes, employment equity and BEE shareholding schemes in the country have been a total disaster.
The private sector has not known how to transform the country. It coopted connected ANC cadres and launched financially unsound schemes.
In the mining industry the social and labour plans are a farce, plagued by dishonesty, insincerity and corruption in the face of escalating poverty in the mining communities and labour sending areas.
A capable entrepreneurial state must lead all transformation as was done in Singapore, Japan, China and beyond.
• Swana is an independent political and governance analyst, principal consultant at the Centre for Strategic Leadership
