By Sandile Swana
The Public Service Commission (PSC), through its commissioner, Anele Gxoyiya, admitted there are some parts of the state that are still functioning, but sounded alarm bells that this would not be enough to stop the state implosion if professionalisation is not fully implemented.
Gxoyiya, quoting some authority, said: “However, if we are not able to join hands in this professionalisation route, then we are heading towards being a failed state.”
The problem, according to the PSC, is that public service employees are not made permanent employees of the state, employed only because of proven merit using credible human resources processes and methods.
Professionalisation of the state means that all appointments in the state are made permanent without regard to political affiliation, and services are delivered professionally, based on the constitution.
South Africa is in the top seven out of 193 nations in relation to entrenched and organised crime – and declining state capabilities to fight organised crime.
The largest category of organised crime is financial crime, followed by human trafficking.
South Africa has a minimum of a 22-year period history of documented financing of terrorism through weak controls of illicit financial flows, money laundering and failure to control the issuing of identity documents and passports.
This is compounded by its loose border controls.
State employees and corrupt politicians use state machinery to facilitate the movement of drugs from various countries including South America, Afghanistan, Pakistan and various European countries, among others.
South Africa is a leading consumer of drugs, a producer of drugs and an international hub for drugs, money laundering and human trafficking.
These activities have resulted in our grey listing by rating agencies.
Our passports have long been stopped from being visa-free into the UK, and there are major financial and economic leakages in the economy and the country’s financial system, sponsored mainly by corrupt, politically connected, and incompetent state employees, elected public representatives and ministers.
Former president Thabo Mbeki and other eminent scholars highlight the easily avoidable crisis of the failing state. The corrupt ruling elites have created a failing public education system and are now taking their children to private schools, yet the constitution anticipates the provision of high-quality education by the state to all residents of South Africa.
The corrupt ruling elites have collapsed the SA Police Service (SAPS), the SA National Defence Force (SANDF), military intelligence, crime intelligence and national intelligence to the point where ordinary South Africans are not safe in the streets, at work, at church or in their homes.
This has created a private security industry larger than the SANDF and SAPS combined. Armed gangs of cash-in-transit heists, brazen daylight armed invasions of homes and businesses occur with such impunity.
A further example is that the state has lost capacity in the supply of electricity to the private sector. That private sector is also made up of elites who want privatisation of state functions.
The same private sector involves criminals who use stolen transformers, cables, and other electrical equipment, to provide illegal electricity supply to informal settlements.
Users of the state’s rail, port and pipeline entity Transnet’s freight services recently claimed that they are losing about R1bn per day due to the collapsing railway and port services. These services are already hijacked and repurposed by criminal syndicates linked to the ruling elites.
Privatisation itself has two sides – one side is where well-connected business syndicates advocate for privatisation and get state assets for private benefit at a cost to the nation without participation of the ordinary masses.
The second side entails criminal syndicates, some with global capabilities. These have taken over chunks of the economy and state functions. There are also slumlords who capture both state-owned and private buildings and rent them out with no benefit to the owner.
The transport sector is teeming with murderous warlords, and gangsterism prevails.
However, we know that the taxi industry has been a threat to the human rights of black people especially, and a criminal menace to society, with ongoing assassinations and taxi wars being endemic.
The trucking industry is a mishmash of murder and wide-ranging sabotage of existing railway infrastructure, wanton blockades of roads, burning of trucks and buses. All of this cannot happen without political and state support.
Mbeki makes the point that there are already several trillions of rands in the private sector waiting to be invested, without any need to go outside the country for more investment.
In addition, South Africa has the skills to run most state services on a globally competitive basis. Private investment needs a capable state, run by non-aligned professionals to create successful public/private partnerships in line with our existing laws.
• Swana is a political analyst, and a member of the 70s Group
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