The subject of nationalisation (of key industries) is one that has brought about heated debates, market jitters, spin doctoring and even produced silent foes amongst friends within the ruling party. This is a subject of national interest but it is not just about the wishes of the elite. Wishing it away by the elite will not translate to the debate going away though. Let us not kid ourselves as South Africa and be fooled into a false sense of comfort that those who lobby for this policy position have been or will be defeated either.
My prediction is that nationalisation will indeed happen and in our lifetime even and it will actually be adopted as soon as in 2012 and be documented as an official policy position of the ANC. This is a noteworthy year since the ANC will be holding its 53rd national conference. This is a year which will produce surprises in many respects and those who have allowed power to get to their heads are in for a rude awakening. Present in this national conference too will be those within the ruling elite who once prophesied that such a policy position will not happen in their lifetime. This bold declaration however on the face of it doesn't have support where it matters.
The sentiment on the ground (i.e. branches) doesn't favour the elite and it is such that African people want and are craving for economic emancipation. They are growing tired of being content with political freedom, 17 years into the new dispensation, especially not when 90% of the economy still resides in the hands of the few. The question the impoverished and economically segregated always ask is: What is the use of political freedom without the corresponding spoils of the economy that will take them out of abject poverty?
The economic systems that have been adopted by the ruling party thus far are progressive e.g. tendering and Black Economic Empowerment but the flaws outweigh the benefits with the exception of Employment Equity perhaps. The former two policies have unfortunately left the majority out of the key economic sectors and decision making. The biggest challenge with these two policies with all its good intentions is that one needs to have the right political connections to start with. I am emphasising RIGHT because it is not just any political connections but influential ones that are needed for that matter. In order to bid for a tender in government, there is sometimes a stringent capital outlay where some tenders need as much as R25 000 for the tender document.
Thirdly, a Black person then needs to prove that they are indeed Black which is an impediment. This third stated requirement comes in the form of a BEE verification certificate which is sometimes a requirement for tendering. Why is this still necessary, I ask, when the ID copy that is sometimes required as part of the supporting attachments clearly reflects the ethnicity or racial class of the bidder? As an eternal optimist, I want to believe that those who came up with this idea and crafted this policy (hopefully not consultants) had good intentions.
The question however is whether this was clearly thought through including the possible impediments it has and/or may create going forward? The answer is not affirmative because already, the Black bidder is at a disadvantage because over and above requiring funds to do the job, they first need funds to prove their Africanness. The flip side of the coin is that their White counterparts were never required to prove their Caucasian origins during the apartheid regime. Even in these democratic times, they do not need to prove their skin colour thus there is no extra cost in this regard and for them being skilled suffices.
Fourthly, the BEE policy (or BBBEE as it has now been fashioned) is not serving its intended outcomes. It tends to still require a Black entity to partner with a White owned company in order to be recognised as a reputable supplier/establishment. As much as Whites may complain about BEE but the fact of the matter is that this policy has benefited White communities more than it has benefitted the very Black communities for which is was intended to economically uplift. In the last 17 years, a period from when South Africa became a democratic state to date, the wealth of Whites increased 7 fold. Black people on the other hand have become worse off 10 fold with the exception of the emerging Black middle class of course.
The Black middle class is hardly a yardstick to measure success by though since they account for only 2 million out of a possible 30 million Africans in the country. This is sadly a measly 6.6% (notwithstanding the fact the last census was conducted in 2001 hence these figures may be inaccurate). The next census which will be conducted this year will certainly prove my estimates to be more or less correct though. This is not a criticism of the ruling party, if at all it is an indictment and affirmation that it has done something positive in uplifting the lives of Black people.
We all know that under apartheid, there was hardly any Black middle class. The strides that have been made by the governing party are encouraging but it is now time to go for the jugular. It is for this reason that I make a bold prediction that the nationalisation of key industries which counts banks, mines, petroleum, steel and other sectors will eventuate. This may be misconstrued as arrogance by some whereas it is an honest assessment of the feelings of the people on the ground. I'm referring here to people who matter most when it comes to the ruling party's policies.
I use the terms ruling and governing party interchangeably because what the party resolves sometimes doesn't filter through to government policy. This prediction is by no means an attempt to undermine the executive and/or the opinions of this country's corporate and community citizenry nor a statement which seeks to disrespect the NEC, the ANC's current top leadership and/or their position in this debate (whatever it may be). It is instead a statement of facts as I see them unfold in the next 22 months leading to the Mangaung conference. I am not terribly concerned about being disciplined for my views though since those who reclaimed the ANC's soul fought for dissent.
Those who have followed my writings in the last 6 years, will know that there are many events that I have predicted correctly, amongst which I can count the reconfiguration and shut down of the then Scorpions (formerly known as the Directorate of Public Prosecutions). In 2005 shortly before Mr Zuma was dismissed as the Deputy President of the country, in an article which was published by the Business Day newspaper on 14 June, I boldly predicted that Mr Mbeki had no power over Mr Zuma since was a leader elected at conference.
I went on to predict that instead Mr Zuma was going to become a president of the ANC in December 2007, elected by the card carrying members thereof which would later translate to his elevation by the electorate in 2009. In that article, I had stated the obvious but that which the media didn't know in that any decision to fire Mr Zuma (in that instance) from the ANC could only be taken by the NGC. It is now history that in July of that year, people on the ground rebelled against the NEC and Mr Zuma went on to become president of both the ANC in 2007 and country in 2009 thus unseating a sitting president which had never happened in the history of the African continent.
And so, to those who wish to use intimidation and expulsion to silence dissenters for their views on this subject, should take note. Those who want to use discipline to remove elected leaders of youth structures must know that that decision can only be taken by the appropriate electoral structures of the ANCYL notwithstanding it being part of the ANC (and thus only being autonomous and not independent of the mother-body). With the ANCYL's conference coming up in June 2011, I foresee Mr Malema taking the reigns for a second term. And so this interesting debate and contentious policy position, which has almost divided the country right down the middle, will wage on and come to its logical resolution in Mangaung (2012).
Importantly, it will be resolved by input from the people (not just the wishes of the leadership or the so called markets). That is the beauty of the ANC's bottom up approach and the people on the ground have a knack of embarrassingly punishing those who ridicule them as happened in 2007. The economic transformation resolutions already state that, "the state must intervene strategically in key industries..." The attempts to downplay the impact of the lobbyists of this winnable and imperative economic policy are understandable - there are those who want to save face amid pressure from markets due to sentiments which have been echoed by the ANCYL. Truth be told, the people on the ground won the day even at the recent NGC but the outcome of the policy inscription was politically and undemocratically managed.
The NGC had been preceded by heated arguments for and against nationalisation in provincial general councils with those arguing vociferously against it trying to narrow the good intentions of nationalisation to just mines whilst those who were for it won the day. Like Mandela in 1956 and again in a statement which he repeated upon his release in 1990, the people want to achieve what he said in their lifetime:
"The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable."
Could the following words be the source of the narrow interpretation of the real intentions of the policy on nationalisation by the ANCYL and those who support the policy? Mandela repeated similar sentiments albeit he tweaked words in his autobiography, The Struggle of my Life, which was released in 1990. In this book, Mandela writes,
"The African Nationalism for which the ANC stands is the concept of freedom and fulfillment for the African people in their own land ... it would be a hollow gesture to repeal the Gold Law prohibitions against Africans when all gold mines are owned by European companies. In this respect the ANC's policy corresponds with the old policy of the present Nationalist Party which, for many years, had as part of its programme the nationalisation of the gold mines".
Time will tell but one thing is for sure, nationalisation will become a documented policy of the ANC in our people's lifetime. Those who are in the driving seat of the policy will weather the storm in a tea cup and survive to shape the ANCs' history.
This article is written in my personal capacity and I hold no one accountable for innuendo and undertones contained in it.
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