South Africa desperately needs a systemic overhaul

The South Africa of 2023 has become like a fully perforated bucket. Increased blackouts, business shutdowns and layoffs, increased business overheads due to the longer and more frequent blackouts, violent crime – including murderous home invasions – a spate of assassinations. Then there is the very low and diminishing citizen trust in government and politicians in general, while ANC-linked trade unions make unaffordable demands on a shrinking economy while they continue to be part of a misgoverning Tripartite Alliance.

And a middle-class that is in pain, even though many in it are still too ashamed to put it out there.

In many countries, the middle class helps drive the economy, not least by creating small and medium enterprises that create jobs and reduce unemployment. It generally comprises educated and entrepreneurial people who buy homes and motor vehicles on long-term credit. However, while they generally appear to be well-off, based on their lifestyles, they’re often very vulnerable when things go wrong. This is due to the impact of debt, which fuels the economy if it remains within healthy limits, but can cripple individual consumers when it does not.

The South African context presents several unique features, the most painful of which is race. Decades of racist apartheid rule, which officially ended in the early 1990s, left scars. Today, policies intended to correct these inequalities have mostly served to enrich individuals linked to the misgoverning political elite or companies linked to them. Meanwhile millions of destitute South Africans have been left behind, relying instead on meagre government handouts in the form of social grants.

The situation of the majority of ordinary black South Africans has not improved much; in fact, in some cases it has worsened to such points that some – no doubt out of frustration – have gone on to claim that things were better during apartheid. This is, of course, not accurate. But it should disturb us that, however, misguided the claim, anyone is desperate and angered enough to make it.

To recover economically and to strengthen social cohesion, South Africa does not need more race policies. It needs sober minds elected with a clear mandate to govern as full representatives of all South Africans, irrespective of racial, ethnic, religious, gender identity, and other backgrounds.

It needs a systemic overhaul: those elected must be accountable to the citizens, not political bosses who are mindful only of their longevity in power or the material gain they can extract while there.

Other problems include the enormous powers enshrined in the presidency. I would love to see these powers devolved - imagine, if you will, a world in which we instead had an entrenched multi-party national council of sorts, elected for a limited term with a rotating presidency for the duration of that council's electoral term. Imagine that council functioning on clear, legally enforceable guidelines, not relying on the goodwill or good health of any one party or individual - instead being accountable only to the citizens. Imagine a world where citizens had more rights to fully participate in democratic processes, including the passing of new laws, through referendums/referenda and other applicable tools, demanded by the voters through predetermined processes and verifiable participation.

The era of the political tail wagging the dog should be ended. It should no longer be a matter of charming, aspiring politicians saying, “vote for me and I will do this for you”, but one where it is the people who say, “we will vote for you if you do this for us.”

South Africa also needs a professional civil service throughout, with weakened executive mayoral offices, so that political interference in matters relating to normal municipal operations are avoided. The introduction of the “executive mayor” system, which often comes with powerful mini cabinets in the form of mayoral committees filled with uneducated, ill-experienced, and politically emotional individuals driven by self-interest, must be reviewed.

The “executive mayoral system” easily politicises and usurps the responsibilities of executive municipal leadership. It might have been a good idea at the time it was introduced, and its writers might not have foreseen its ingrained dangers – just like the writers of the South African Constitution failed to foresee the dangers of placing too much power in the office of the president - but the whole thing has become a toxic obstacle to serving the needs of South Africans, especially where the provision of municipal services is concerned.

Professional municipal management, led by capable municipal managers, must be blind to which party is in power when they serve the people of South Africa, across the country. The same must apply to people appointed to South Africa’s foreign missions across the globe, and those employed in the secret service (National Intelligence Services), the entire criminal justice system, the management of SOEs, and everyone else employed to deliver services to all South Africans. They must look to the constitution and the rights of South Africans for guidance first and foremost, and not to the narrow interests of politicians.

Having placed too much power into the hands of politicians has been the greatest mistake of South Africa’s post-apartheid dispensation. With a good plan supported by most, this can be turned around - it must be turned around - but it will take time, no doubt.

If nothing gets done to attend to the real, systemic weaknesses that enabled state capture, toxic cadre deployment, and other forms of corruption to do to South Africa what they have over the past 20-30 years, we shall keep trying the same approaches repeatedly and wondering why the outcomes never change.?

What South Africa needs is not a mere change of political parties at its helm; it is a systemic overhaul. It is the weaknesses ingrained in the current system that enable its abuse by politicians who go rogue on the people.

The people of South Africa must take back their power and be the ones who get to determine the agenda, not the politicians.