SA – Big Question Time

By Iain Robertson

South Africa is at a tipping point. We have a Government that seems to have lost the plot. It is fighting paper tigers in the media while we head towards an economic Armageddon with increasing rapidity. The rapacious plundering of the economy by the not-so-good in Government, their relatives and friends looks more and more like rats deserting the sinking ship.

But the real story is even worse. We do not have the skills to turn our economy around, we do not have an education system that can provide us with the skilled people in sufficient time, and even if we did, we do not have the warm bodies of a suitable age to receive that education.

Point 1 – a people crisis:

• A population of 52 Million or so, plus an estimated 10 Million legal and illegal immigrants.
  
• The official unemployment rate is given as around 25%. Unisa calculate 45%, and the advertising industry use a figure closer to 65%.
  
• About 20 Million people are dependent on welfare grants
  
• 5.7 Million people are HIV positive, dying at a rate of about 1000 per day, mostly in the economically active 15-45 age group.
  
• Average life expectancy has tumbled from 60 in 1990 to 40 today
  
• Disengaged, functionally illiterate, innumerate and uneducable individuals in youth and middle age
  
• By 2015, 32% of all children will be AIDS orphans
  
• There are about 5.3Million registered taxpayers, of whom 1 Million or so are Government employees, thereby just moving tax income from one pocket to another. Of the remaining 4Million or so, about 1 Million provide 75% of the tax income. According to Mike Schussler and others, an unsustainable economy.

Point 2 – an environment crisis

• Dysfunctional electricity reticulation and generation
  
• An unmaintained and disintegrating physical infrastructure. Most roadway bridges have not been maintained for the last 15 years
  
• Less than 5% of the sewage plants in the country (around 30 out of 930) operate correctly
  
• Just over 10% of all municipalities (30 out of 280) can provide clean and safe drinking water
  
• Water with the acidity of lemon juice will flood central Johannesburg and poison the Gauteng environment in about 18 months time, the legacy of gold mining.

Point 3 – a governance crisis

• A wholesale loss of skills and expertise from 1994 onwards as experienced and competent civil servants were replaced with deployed ANC cadres. A simple replacement, no handover or skills transfer
  
• The concept of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” has gone out of the window.
  
• Relocation (theft) of state funds by tampering with contracts, tenders and pay-offs has become an acceptable secondary income stream
  
• The result - large areas of society are governed by thieves and incompetents

What is suddenly different ?

While the gradual erosion of government could be hidden a facade could be maintained, but as soon as the electricity crisis hit, followed by the admission of a forthcoming sewage and water crisis, the inadequacies in governance were literally brought home to citizens. Questions were then asked about missing RDP homes, RDP homes that fell apart after a very short period, and the general appalling level of service delivery. The Emperor then had no clothes.

The outcome of the realisation that governance is failing is already being seen. Self-help is now the order of the day as citizens bypass formal government structures that are unable to deliver. Communities repair roads themselves, pay for additional teaching and medical staff in their schools and hospitals. Black communities are demonstrating and physically attacking local and national government buildings. Voices are arising in all communities that they are paying at least twice for everything, once as tax, and a second time to provide paid-for services that are not delivered. At some point very soon, they will stop paying the first time and let the Revenue know in no uncertain terms.

We are now beginning to see Government react. It is trying to close down avenues of information, by preventing the media reporting on it, by attempting to close off areas of the Internet, and by adopting the philosophy that everything is secret unless deemed otherwise. Local Government is becoming increasingly dysfunctional and irrelevant.

Where do we go from here ? Towards an increasingly autocratic society as we slip into the “African” model of a polarised economy of an ultra rich minority and a subsistence level majority. Unless something changes that is what will happen.

It all depends on how we manage our Human Capital as individuals and as small businesses. Without adequate intellectual and human capital in ourselves, our businesses and our customers, we will not be able to regenerate our society. The next year is critical.