The main business of the coming new government of 2024-2029 is to get South Africa back on track to where we were around 2004.
Then we had surplus electricity, emerging economic growth, reliable clean water and sewerage systems and an aggressive Reconstruction and Development Programme housing programmes.
The damage that has been done to the economy, railway transport systems, electricity supply, sewerage systems, potable water systems and so on, will now take the better part of the period 2024 to 2039 to stabilise – 10 to 15 years.
I listened to a video clip on social media. One former Congress of South African Students (Cosas) member was addressing a funeral/memorial service of a fallen comrade in Grahamstown.
He mentioned what used to be a reputable high school in the area, and quickly corrected himself that many would not relate to the historical image of that formerly excellent school because “kuphasalaka yonke into ngoku”. which is that everything is crumbling, even formerly excellent schools in Grahamstown are not easy to recognise.
The idea of things falling apart was echoed over the Heritage Day long weekend when I was in the male’s toilets at Cradlestone shopping mall, Krugersdorp. There was no running water for washing hands. One shopper said: “Everything is falling apart in South Africa.”
As if that were not enough, I had friends from Waterfall Estate and Sandton over the same weekend. They remarked that they had become accustomed to being without water for three to 10 days at a time.
In Tsakane, Ekurhuleni, we are told of a seven-week water outage. In many parts of the country electricity outages are now the norm. But the culture of outages must end in the period 2024-2039.
Clearly, the architects of this culture cannot be part of the solution. Our national problem is 90% a human resources problem, in a country where technical and management skills are above average.
Our skills base is adequate no matter which angle you approach it from. Our universities, technical colleges, corporations, municipalities, state departments and municipalities have developed enough capabilities between 1994 and now to cover all aspects of our civilisation. Race is not even relevant to the question. Skills are widely distributed.
The mayor of Tshwane recently made a startling revelation. He said the strike action by the SA Municipal Workers Union in the Tshwane Metro has now been joined by criminals.
The intervention by criminal syndicates in the affairs of the state was highlighted by Andre de Ruyter at Eskom and by Prof Anthony Turton of the University of Free State in the water sector across SA. The entire transport sector is riddled with criminal syndicates.
My reading of the risk and governance environment is that we have four potent forces that undermine service delivery and maintenance of infrastructure. It is corrupt politicians; corrupt public servants; corrupt private sector; and businesses and criminal syndicates.
These groups compete, and sometimes cooperate, in the stripping and sabotage of state infrastructure and every other kind of infrastructure.
Staff and management of the state can launch corrupt schemes without guidance from politicians. They undermine the corrupt intentions of politicians to better enforce their own criminal agendas at the public’s expense. Criminals extort all kinds of facilitation and protection fees from businesses and state employees.
Jobs for sex or pals and all manner of immorality and criminality undermine the allocation of correct personnel or fit-for-purpose service providers to each task of the state.
This is the central national question for the years 2024-2039. This warrants that the selection of any person for any office in the state must go through a credible human resources HR recruitment, selection and appointment process guided not by political ideology but by the technical requirements of the task at hand.
All sewerage treatment and water purification plants must only be overseen by correctly certified technicians or engineers. Professional human resource management practitioners must be free to independently introduce credible processes in the state free of any political intervention.
The Public Service Commission must be assisted by registered professional bodies to make sure that every place is occupied only by the best qualified person without reference to any political ideology.
These professional bodies would include health sciences, all engineering disciplines, all law disciplines (advocates and attorneys), tax consultants, auditors, accountants, statisticians social workers and so on.
Politics itself must be recognised as a profession.
Our history has shown that we cannot leave the human resources functions of the state in the hands of politicians.
It follows that the security cluster-crime intelligence, state security/national security and military intelligence as well as the SA Police Service, the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority, all need rehabilitation to be able to start protecting national assets, infrastructure and state services, which are undermined by crime and corruption.
- Swana is a member of the 70s Group and a political analyst
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