JOINT STATEMENT BY ATHOL TROLLIP MP AND IAN DAVIDSON MP, DA PARLIAMENTARY LEADER AND CHIEF WHIP, DA REPRESENTATIVES: THE AD HOC COMMITTEE ON THE GREEN PAPER: NATIONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING, NOVEMBER 10 2009

DA submission on the National Planning Commission

The DA has today tabled the following submission (below) to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Green Paper proposing a National Planning Commission. After having read the report and considered all the submissions on the Green Paper, the following document contains the DA's recommendations.

A SUBMISSION FROM THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE TO THE AD HOC COMMITTEE ON THE GREEN PAPER: NATIONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING RECOMMEDNATIONS ON THE GREEN PAPER, NOVEMBER 10 2009

Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably. It likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing. It works willingly for their happiness but wants to be the sole agent and only arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and takes care of their needs, facilitates their pleasures, manages their most important affairs, directs their industry, regulates their successions, and divides their inheritances. Why not relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and the difficulty of living?

Every day it thus makes man's use of his free will rarer and more futile. It circumscribes the action of the will more narrowly, and little by little robs each citizen of the use of his own faculties. Equality paved the way for all these things by preparing men to put up with them and even to look upon them as a boon.

The sovereign, after taking individuals one by one in his powerful hands and kneading them to his liking, reaches out to embrace society as a whole. Over it he spreads a fine mesh of uniform, minute, and complex rules, through which not even the most original minds and most vigorous souls can poke their heads above the crowd. He does not break men's wills but softens, bends, and guides them. He seldom forces anyone to act but consistently opposes action. He does not destroy things but prevents them from coming into being. Rather than tyrannize, he inhibits, represses, saps, stifles and stultifies, and in the end he reduces each nation to nothing but a flock of timid and industrious animals, with the government as its shepherd.

[Alexis de Tocqueville; 1835; ‘What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear'; Democracy in America]

Introduction

In the extract quoted above, Alexis de Tocqueville describes the particular guise that despotism might take in future democratic states. His fear was that democracy would become a proxy for control and that the centralisation of power could produce a government the purpose of which was to manage not merely the organs of state but the private affairs of individuals. De Tocqueville does not suggest this process is violent, but ‘mild'; and its realization not sudden, but gradual: "little by little [it] robs each citizen of the use of his own faculties". The danger, then, lies in the fact that this threat is not immediately apparent; and the primary challenge facing the citizens of any democratic state begins in recognising how it manifests itself contemporarily, and then in acting to counter its influence.

His warning is prescient and relevant still today. In its extreme form, it came to define the socialism of the Soviet Union; but it describes too the inclinations and desires that underwrite nationalist thinking in general and the programme of action and policy of the African National Congress in particular.

South Africa is today in the grips of such a threat. Central to that threat is the agenda of the ANC, its understanding of the role it plays in society and the manner in which its pursuit of power manifests itself in government thinking. Ideologically incapable of properly separating party and state and, through a policy of cadre deployment and a culture of nepotism, practically concerned with bending all key levers of power to its own will, the ANC has overseen a decade-long destructive drive to centralise power. The result of this has been that those institutions designed both to deliver basic services and to act as a bulwark against an encroaching majority have seen their integrity systematically denuded.

Under the guise of the Developmental State, this latest ANC administration has laid bear its centralising agenda for all to see; at its heart, a National Planning Commission, ostensibly a powerful mechanism to map the country's future but, put in its proper context, a focal point for power and control, which can be easily manipulated and, in the hands of a nationalist organisation concerned primarily with the consolidation of power and the subversion of the constitution, a clear and present danger to our democratic state.

1. Party and state and power[1]

In the run-up to its 50th National Conference, the ANC published various documents motivating for a drastic centralisation of power within the party, and for a massive extension of party control over the state and civil society. ANC cadres would be deployed to all "centres of power" in the state and society in order to ensure that power "is truly in the hands of the people".

In order to give effect to this desire for greater control the ANC adopted various resolutions and constitutional amendments to enable the party to centralise power:

• The ANC constitution was amended to place all ANC structures - including ANC caucuses in the legislatures - under the supervision and direction of the party leadership. The National Working Committee (NWC) was given responsibility for ensuring that all ANC structures carried out the decisions of the NEC.
• The party resurrected and reaffirmed the principle of democratic centralism in a Conference resolution. ANC members would henceforth be bound by "maximum political discipline" and would have to "defend and implement" the decisions of the party leadership "irrespective of the many and varied sectors" in which they were deployed.
• The Conference adopted a cadre resolution which mandated the NWC to: deploy cadres to the key centres of power identified by the NWC; establish committees at national, provincial and local level to oversee deployment; and draw up a comprehensive Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy.

Armed with a proper mandate from the party, the ANC's NWC set about implementing the policy. The NWC identified the key centres of power within the state as "the army, the police, the bureaucracy, intelligence structures, the judiciary, parastatals, and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public broadcaster, the central bank and so on". The NWC proceeded to deploy cadres to head up institutions such as SARS, the GCIS, the Reserve Bank and the SANDF. In December of 1998 the ANC adopted a comprehensive Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy and established a National Deployment Committee (NDC) headed up by Jacob Zuma (the then-deputy president of the ANC.) Other Deployment Committees were subsequently established at provincial and local government level.

a. Role of Deployment Committees

The Deployment Committees were established as party structures parallel "to those of government in all spheres" which would oversee all deployments and ensure that cadres remained "informed by and accountable" to the party leadership. All deployments (other than those made by the president of the republic, in his capacity as president) would now go through these Committees. Announcing the establishment of the National Deployment Committee, an ANC spokesman stated, "The time for self-deployment is over. Every deployment will now go through the committee, be it in national, provincial or local government".

b. The Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy

The Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy committed the party to a continued consolidation and extension of ANC power. In institutions where the ANC was already in control (such as the civil service and the legislatures) the policy called for a strengthening of ANC "supervisory structures" and the consolidation of political and administrative control.

The policy also called for a further strengthening of ANC leadership in "all parastatals and statutory bodies in order of importance" and over civil society ("all other sectors of social activity") including sport, the economy and the media.

c. The centralisation of power

ANC cadres are bound to implement the decisions of the party leadership under the doctrine of democratic centralism. However, the practical means by which the NWC ensures control is through reserving senior positions in the state for members of the party.

The overlapping powers of the ANC as a party and the ANC in government mean that the NWC has (directly or indirectly) massive and far-reaching control over appointments. For instance, the president of the ANC appoints the premier of each ANC controlled province. The premiers act under the direction of the NWC. The premiers appoint the heads of provincial government departments. The NWC has used its powers to appoint ANC members to key positions from national to local government administration. The party has ensured that all security and intelligence departments are headed up by former ANC exiles close to the ANC president. Where the government does not have statutory control over a state institution (such as the Reserve Bank), the NWC can use deployment and party discipline to ensure control.

d. Consequences for democracy

Through its Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy the ANC has managed to create a dual authority: ostensible authority continues to lie in the constitution and parliament; real authority lies within the ANC's national executive. As a result:

• ANC members of parliament under the "supervision and direction" of the NWC are unable to execute their constitutional obligations to hold the executive to account.
• ANC MPs are not answerable and accountable to the voters who elected them, but to the party leadership which appointed them and controls their careers.
• Within the civil service the formal hierarchical lines of accountability are bypassed, with ANC cadres informed by and answerable to party structures parallel to those of the state.
• The constitutional obligation on ANC members in independent statutory bodies to perform their duties without "fear or favour" subject only to the constitution and the law is overridden by the "maximum political discipline" demanded by the party leadership.

With an overwhelming majority most ruling parties would be prone to slowly and incrementally blurring the lines between party and state. In South Africa, though, the ANC has set about purposefully and systematically eliminating these distinctions. The ANC Cadre Policy has pushed South Africa into a downward spiral towards authoritarianism. The ANC has created a nomenklatura which is not only loyal to the party, but whose power and position is dependent on the ANC remaining in power. The party's factionalism has had no effect on this policy, it has only affected the fight to ensure that those cadres deployed are loyal to the faction that holds the balance of power.

That is not to underestimate the impact of that contest. The recently tabled report on The State of Local Government in South Africa (a report undertaken by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) puts it like this:

Assessments revealed that party political factionalism and polarisation of interests over the last few years, and the subsequent creation of new political alliances and elites, have indeed contributed to the progressive deterioration of municipal functionality. Evidence has been collected to dramatically illustrate how the political/administrative interface has resulted in factionalism on a scale that, in some areas, it is akin to a battle of state resources rather than any ideological or policy differences. The lack of values, principles or ethics in these cases indicates that there are officials and public representatives for whom public service is not a concern, but accruing of wealth at the expense of poor communities is their priority.

In implementing its Cadre Policy the immediate priority of the ANC was extending party control over the state machinery. However, the ambitions of the ANC were never confined to control over the state. ANC documents have repeatedly advocated extending "hegemony" over civil society and particularly the media. The "centres of power" identified by ANC intellectuals for cadre deployment included the "economy" and the "public debate." The greater the control the party has over the state, the fewer the constraints it operates under, and the more it is able to undermine the autonomy of institutions in civil society.

2. The drive to centralise power

For many years the ANC has hidden cadre deployment beneath a veneer that suggested there was an appropriate separation between party and state, while the drive to consolidate control over key centres of power and to create a hegemony over civil society was carried out largely behind the scenes. Internal factionalism and the destructive influence that policy has had on many key institutions has today eroded away that superficial suggestion entirely. And, with the election of President Jacob Zuma, that drive has now been moved front of house as the ANC's legislative agenda to centralise power has brought into plain view.

Significant examples include:

• The Public Administration Management Bill: Proposes to create a single public service and would give the Minister the power to intervene directly in the affairs of municipal councils, even retroactively.
• A National Health Insurance Scheme: The main elements of this plan are the creation of a new national authority to manage the public health system, and the forced diversion of an estimated 80% of funds currently going to private health care to the public sector.
• The 17th Constitutional Amendment Bill: Empowers national government to usurp powers from local government by removing important constitutional mechanisms that local governments can currently use to counter such abuse.
• Proposal to scrap the provinces: A suggestion currently under consideration that the powers of provincial administrations be reduced or removed entirely.
• Decreasing judicial independence: The following Bills all attempt to exert greater political control over the judiciary: the Judicial Conduct Tribunals Bill, the South African National Justice College Draft Bill, the Superior Courts Bill and proposed amendments to the Judicial Service Commission Act as well as to the constitution itself.
• The systematic reduction of powers of independent institutions and governing councils with increased power being vested in the executive. Examples include the diminished status of Nursing Councils and School Governing Bodies.
• Built Environment Professions Bill: The Bill will, if passed, establish a body to be known as the South African Council for the Built Environment (SACBE). The creation of SACBE will see the relegation of existing councils, including the highly-regarded Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), to the status of being mere professional boards. This is a complete contradiction to international best practice. The Bill also gives the minister of public works far-reaching powers to arbitrarily exempt certain individuals or groups from the registration process. To compound the negative effect of this Bill, the minister of public works can even intervene in the development of the engineering educational syllabuses.
• National Treasury Constitutional Amendment Bill: Seeks to amend the Constitution so that municipalities are reduced to administrative arms of the central government. 
• A Single Police Force: The Department of Police has stated that it intends to nullify the metro police services and bring all elements of the police force under the national government's administration.
• The Land Expropriation Bill: Allows the Minister to expropriate any property rights in the "public interest". After expropriating the property, the Minister need not pay the affected landowner the full market value of the property.
• National Health Amendment Bill: At the Bill's core was the establishment of a "pricing tribunal" - appointed by the Minister - that decides how much private hospitals and doctors may charge for their services.
• The Protection of Information Bill: Proposes that the publishing of "sensitive information", defined as threatening the "national interest", become a criminal offence if it aims to "prejudice the state". Included among matters in the national interest are "defence and security plans", "significant political and economic relations with international organisations and foreign governments" and "details of criminal investigations".

There are many other such examples. Some of these bills have been withdrawn, to be reconsidered and reintroduced at a later stage, others are only ‘under discussion'; but these undertakings are never to reverse the intent of a particular proposal, at best they are only to water them down. There can be no argument that the ANC government is focused on centralising as much power as possible in the hands of the central administration in general and the executive in particular. The consequences of this for our constitutional democracy are profound.

3. A National Planning Commission

Against this background the ANC has proposed the establishment of a National Planning Commission. The Green Paper, which sets out the vision that would underpin such an institution, has all the characteristics of the veiled intent that belies cadre deployment. It uses phrases like "national interest" and ideas such as a single national vision to detract from the way in which it would centralise control and it uses universal problems like poverty and HIV/Aids as the excuse to justify a series of possible interventions for it proposes no checks or balances.

Most disturbingly, and clearly underlying the entire Green Paper, is the assumption that the ANC would have been elected to power at every level, and co-ordination and planning is not merely a matter of encouraging best democratic practice but of ensuring that ANC policy is adhered to and properly implemented.

Any proper and objective analysis of a National Planning Commission must interrogate the institution itself; that is, the structure and powers of the mechanism as opposed to the intent of those individuals in charge of managing it. This distinction has not been properly made to date. In much the same fashion, one needs to draw a distinction between the National Planning Commission's ability to generate a coordinated plan and the power it may or may not have to implement that plan.

a. A veiled threat

The Green Paper does not sufficiently address these latter two concerns; that is, it talks in generics and uses imperatives such as poverty eradication to mask a less well defined and possibly far more powerful set of political objectives which are only ever hinted at. For example, the paper says things like "the state has a leading role to play in reshaping the economy", it says our society "needs more than" a coherent plans to shape our programmes, priorities and budgets; the paper argues the commission needs to "strengthen" the relationship between state and society; it says the planning process will allow the state to "identify the self-interest of various sectors and, where practicable, synthesize these into a common national interest"; it says "operational plans must take account of the broader national plan". It says we need "an agreed vision about the country's direction" and an agency that can "authoritatively and forcefully drive planning, monitoring and evaluation and institutional improvements". It states that the commission will have the power to investigate "under the supervision of the Minister for National Planning" specific areas of policy the results of which would be presented to parliament, "and prepared for decisions where appropriate". It says the minister in the presidency for national planning will be "politically accountable for delivering certain outputs" and that in order to achieve that he will have to be "backed by a well-organized and technically capable institutional machinery infused with a high degree of authority and leverage".

There has been a tendency to measure this proposal against the public record of the minister responsible for its formulation. This is a mistake. As the minister himself will be the first to admit, this proposal is a consequence of the ANC's policy, it was conceived with the ANC's approval and it was designed to oversee, first and foremost, the implementation of the ANC's programme of action.

The real test of this proposal, as it is with any institution, is the answer to the following question: Will the structural integrity of this institution prevent its abuse, in the wrong hands of a particular individual, or in the hands of an organisation concerned with the centralisation and abuse of power at the expense of our democratic state?

Against the background set out above - a political culture which has created and continues to promote a policy of cadre deployment, deliberately blurring the line between party and state, and a political programme which is focused on centralising power - the proposal that a National Planning Commission be established cannot be supported. It is a proxy for control. And, in the hands of the ANC NEC, its' ostensible purpose and power masks a more dangerous reality: it is a focal point for power, which, as part of the ANC's political agenda, stands in stark contrast to the federal nature of our constitutional democracy.

Seen in this light, those quotes identified above have a different set of implications.

• Where does the state's role in "reshaping the economy" start and stop?
• What does it mean to say we need "more than" a coherent plan?
• How does the Commission conceptualise the "relationship between the state and society"? Where does the ANC's stated goal of creating hegemony stand in relation to this?
• What does it mean to "synthesise" the "self-interest of various sectors" into a "common national plan"?
• What does "a high degree of authority and leverage" mean in practical terms?
• How will the commission "authoritatively and forcefully" drive planning? And what are the implications for those other organs of state tasked with a similar undertaking?
• Who will decide what the Commission investigates, and why?
• What will the relationship of the minister to the Commissioners be?

If the Commission is ultimately answerable to the ANC NEC, as the ruling party is constantly at pains to stress all institutions are, how will it be able to maintain an appropriate detachment between government business and party political considerations. The proposal contained in the Green Paper cannot.

Two examples serve to illustrate this problem:

Antiretroviral Drugs: In January 2000, the DA defied national government policy to implement the country's first Nevirapine programme in Khayelitsha, in the Western Cape (were it was then in power). It was gradually extended across the province, and by July 2003 the programme had reached 100% coverage. That decision and programme ran contrary to the policy and practice of the national administration, which defied the imperative that it provide antiretroviral drugs all the way up to the Constitutional Court. Indeed, even when ordered to do so by the court, in July 2002, it failed to immediately comply.

What would the Planning Commission's response be to such a scenario? If precedent is any indication, it would be to suppress the DA's initiative.

The Erasmus Commission: The Erasmus Commission was set up by the former ANC Premier of the Western Cape, Ebrahim Rasool, to probe the allegation that the DA-led coalition in the City of Cape Town - and Cape Town Mayor and DA leader Helen Zille in particular - had improperly used public funds to spy on their political opponents, despite the City having initiated an independent investigation into the matter, which cleared the administration and the DA of any wrongdoing. The DA labelled the Commission unlawful and argued it had been set up by the ANC to drive a party-political agenda; and it challenged its validity in the Cape High Court. On 1 September the High Court handed down its judgment, which found in favour of the DA and the City of Cape Town on every point. Importantly, it found that:

• The Commission had been set up with a political purpose and was unlawful;
• The City did not have a case to answer, that it had fully cooperated and that it had nothing to hide; and
• Judge Erasmus had acted inappropriately in accepting his appointment to the Commission and the Premier (or government) acted inappropriately in appointing him.

What guarantees are there that the Planning Commission will not be used for similar political purposes? Certainly the Green Paper contains no checks and balances preventing this kind of abuse.

Importantly, the Commission and its implications cannot be properly understood in isolation. It must be read together with the second proposed ministry in the presidency: the performance monitoring and evaluation unit. These two ministries will operate side-by-side and their purpose, power and implications must be evaluated in a similar fashion. But this second ministry has yet to even put a Green Paper before Parliament. The discussion document, which broadly identifies its proposed mandate, suggests the establishment of a ‘delivery unit', the purpose of which is to ‘unblock' problems with service delivery. It would consist of "a small team of experienced officials" who could "facilitate change at national, provincial or local level". In the hands of the ANC NEC such a tool, without the appropriate checks and balances, risks being reduced simply to a political weapon in the arsenal of a ruling party with many internal political battles to revolve. It is critical to understand its relationship to the National Planning Commission. Does it exist to enforce the Planning Commission's priorities? Does it operate in isolation? How do its powers relate or overlap with the Green Paper's suggestion that the Planning Commission "authoritatively and forcefully" drive planning?

b. A dangerous ideological intent

De Tocqueville writes: "our contemporaries are constantly wracked by two warring passions: they feel the need to be led and the desire to remain free. Unable to destroy either of these two contrary instincts, they seek to satisfy both at once. They imagine a single, omnipotent, tutelary power, but one that is elected by the citizens. They combine centralisation with popular sovereignty."

It not the purpose of this paper to interrogate the ANC's policy; nevertheless it is worth putting on record that there are several broad ideological problems with the creation of this institution.

Even if one ignores the policy of cadre deployment and the drive to centralize power, the ANC's ideological understanding of South Africa and the challenges it faces is, at best, described as paternal, at worst, as interfering and authoritarian. That tendency - "it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably", writes de Tocqueville - would only be re-enforced by a National Planning Commission. It would further erode Federalism, reduce personal responsibility and accountability and, by building a larger state, foster a citizenry increasingly reliant on the government to conduct their own affairs. Against this, the Democratic Alliance stands opposed.

There is a further ideological consideration, which cannot be overlooked. The central tenet of the ANC's political philosophy is ‘transformation' - an elusive, ill-defined and all-encompassing idea around which the ANC bases its policy, and through which it justifies many of the government's decisions (most importantly, it serves as a guise through which cadre deployment is promoted and justified). It is not the purpose of this paper to provide a full and detailed critique of transformation, only to flag it as significant to this argument in one very particular way:

Despite being undefined and all-encompassing in abstract terms, transformation is not without moral weight. Indeed, the ANC government has ensured it constitutes the fundamental moral test for any individual or institution. In much the same way that the ruling party's broader attitude often forces institutions to choose whether they are for or against the ANC, so transformation is used to define individuals and institutions in moral terms: those who support transformation are progressive and democratic; those who oppose it are ‘counter-revolutionary' and yearn for a return to the apartheid state. Transformation is the moral litmus test with which the ANC government uses to measure a person or institution's democratic credentials. Transformation itself - that is its principles and consequences - are not open for debate

The lack of a coherent definition means that transformation can function both as a policy programme - a practical set of steps (most importantly, cadre deployment) - and, perhaps far more disturbingly, as an attitude; and, just as an institution can be transformed, for the ANC, so can an individual (it often invokes the Stalinist idea of a "new man"). The implications of this have been profound: a re-racialised South Africa and unquestioned but fundamentally flawed set of values which have warped the mandate of those organs of state (and, indeed, many elements of civil society) which are designed to deliver basic services.

The word transformation does not appear in the constitution, nor is there any existing legislation which sets out its parameters. It is an invention of the ANC and yet the ANC government has not hesitated to use it to achieve its own political ends. In this regard, the Green Paper paves the way for this drive - to impose the ruling party's own set of moral values onto South Africa's institutions and citizenry - to be heightened to a new level. The possibility exists, not only of devising a plan "in the national interest" of which, no doubt, transformation will form a central tenet, but to then use that plan as front to further bend the country's institutions to the ANC NEC's will.

4. The DA's recommendations

Every government needs to plan, and the Democratic Alliance welcomes and fully supports any government initiative, the purpose of which is to better co-ordinate and more effectively map the country's future. Identifying norms and standards and articulating strategic objectives are a critical component of governing effectively, without which any administration will flounder.

The Constitution provides certain conditions to which such planning must adhere. It clearly and expressly identifies the boundaries that define the influence of the national administration and any plan generated on its part must, in turn, adhere to those boundaries.

The proposal contained in the Green Paper fails to adequately satisfy these conditions. It fails properly to account for the ANC's policy of cadre deployment and does not anywhere attempt to describe how such an institution would not be protected from the ANC's inability to properly separate party and state, or its party political agenda. Further, implicit in it, is the assumption that a single party governs all spheres of the South African state. This is not true. And while it is a Constitutional imperative that all provinces "maintain essential national standards" and meet "established minimum standards" in rendering services, out side of that requirement, a province's plans and strategies for achieving those objectives cannot be dictated by the national administration.

Chapter 3 of the South African Constitution describes the nature of cooperative governance in South Africa. Sections 41(1)(e), (f) and (g) of that chapter states, among other things, that "All spheres of government and all organs of state within each sphere must:"

(e) respect the constitutional status, institutions, powers and functions of government in the other spheres;

(f) not assume any power or function except those conferred on them in terms of the Constitution;

(g) exercise their powers and perform their functions in a manner that does not encroach on the geographical, functional or institutional integrity of government in another sphere;

As this Green Paper stands, the Democratic Alliance is not satisfied that these provisions will be adhered to. As such, we propose the following recommendations:

• That the ANC's policy of cadre deployment be abandoned; it has brought irreparable harm to our democracy and if its imposition is facilitated by a National Planning Commission, the damage it has caused will become far more acute;
• That the Planning Commission's mandate be limited simply to the production and coordination of policy and not to include any powers or authority to impose that plan on any organ of state or sphere of government;
• That the Planning Commission's plans and strategies adhere to the constitutional requirement that no one single course of action be imposed on every sphere of government;
• That under no circumstances should the process of formulating a white paper on the National Planning Commission be by-passed or expedited. The white paper will set out the precise powers and the particular nature of the Commission and, if those vague suggestions in the Green Paper are any indication as to the nature of these powers, they are inappropriate and, possibly, unconstitutional. Their precise nature needs to be properly defined before any considered position on this proposal can be adopted.

In conclusion it worth one last time turning to de Tocqueville, who makes the following observation:

"There are many people nowadays who adjust quite easily to a compromise of this kind between administrative despotism and popular sovereignty and who believe they have done enough to guarantee the liberty of individuals when in fact they have surrendered that liberty to the national government."

The National Planning Commission and all it stands for is a response to a particular crisis. It is a pragmatic response, couched in a dangerous ideological cloak. That crisis is largely of the ANC government's own making and, that we need a response to it is not in question. But one cannot adequately address that crisis without properly addressing first the fundamental root causes that underlie its existence.

And so the ANC government faces two challenges: a pragmatic and an ideological problem. What this Green Paper fails to understand, is that the pragmatic problem - a huge skills deficit and a failure to deliver - is borne of the very ideological problem it now posits as a solution - centralisation and a drive to control every aspect of the South African democratic state. If one is to properly address those practical challenges facing our country one must first reverse the ideological drive that underpins their creation. This Green Paper achieves the very opposite - it reinforces centralisation with little or not reference to any appropriate checks and balances.

That threat needs to be recognised for what it is; and that it does not exist in isolation, separate from the institution proposed here. It needs to be understood that it both precedes the proposal and is inherent to it; indeed, it appears to have manifested in its parameters. The Democratic Alliance recognises that threat for what it is and unless this institution is able to properly guard against it, it too will fall under its influence.

[1] This section is an edited version of the introduction to the Democratic Party document ‘All Power to the Party'; March 2000.

Issued by the Democratic Alliance, November 10 2009

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