Why govt still matters (with some caveats)

As someone with a healthy distrust of everything government and a passion for civic duty and private enterprise, I cannot deny that governance still matters in a very real sense.

South Africa did not end up in this veritable social and economic crisis by accident. It was by political design. More prosaically and specifically, the ANC caused it. Their cadre deployment programme and national democratic revolution (NDR), together with its attendant incompetence and corruption, have wrecked every conceivable service that they are responsible for.  

Take water as an exemplar of this imbroglio. Rand Water isn’t sure whether Gauteng, the economic hub of the country, will have sufficient water in future. It is estimated that almost half of all water supplied to the province’s municipalities is lost to due to a lack of infrastructure maintenance. This figure corresponds with South Africa as a whole, as well as other ANC-controlled provinces.

The quality of water is another case in point and, together with availability, has economic and health ramifications. The Blue Drop report by the Department of Water and Sanitation found that nearly half of all water supply systems contain such high levels of bacteria that they pose serious human health risks.

Provinces, regions and cities do not always have control over what happens to them, but they do have control over their preparedness and response. KwaZulu-Natal (Durban in particular) and the Western Cape suffered infrastructural damage due to floods in recent times. The responses were starkly different and so too the expected income from tourism during the festive season.

Durban is struggling with both water supply as well as high levels of E.coli in the ocean. The metro is trying to conceal the latter from the public, but to no avail. “Durban, plagued by water supply woes and persistent fears over high E. coli levels at its beaches, is expecting holiday accommodation occupancy to reach only 75%,” the Sunday Times recently reported.

After flooding wracked the Western Cape in September, there are no concerns regarding the quality of water in the sea or your tap in the province, while repairs to infrastructure are proceeding swiftly. This is among the reasons why the province and its hospitality businesses are preparing to burst at their seams during the holidays.    

The maladies of local government in South Africa are well-known: Water and electricity supply issues, poor road maintenance, and unkempt public spaces. After travelling extensively across the country over the last several years, I can confidently say that some provinces’ municipalities are in much worse shape than others.

And it’s about to get worse in some bad ones. Workers at the Mafube local municipality in the Free State will not receive their salaries for December, January and February amid a court battle over outstanding pension funds. Not much foresight is needed to see what is coming next: No work and likely a disruptive strike that will paralyse and destabilise the rural towns in this municipality.

Notwithstanding efforts by a myriad of non-governmental role-players to counteract and rectify many of these afflictions (and great successes!), these challenges are not disappearing and they seem to be worsening. This is because service-delivery infrastructure belongs to the government and cannot easily be duplicated.

For instance, it is easier to spruce up a sidewalk or repair a pothole than to embark on large capex projects such as repairing or replacing dams and water and electricity infrastructure such as pylons, distribution networks and large pipelines. And the number of potholes fixed by the private sector and civil society – although helpful – is a drop in this ocean of millions.  

Hans Pretorius, chairperson of the community organisation Mafube First, diagnoses the cause of this quandary, as well as its solution, in a comment to Netwerk24: “The circumstances here are dire and we get no cooperation from the municipality. Everything is falling apart.” If you treat your residents and ratepayers like they don’t exist and consider them, at best, to be a subservient nuisance to your rapacity and misgovernance, everything will doubtless fall apart. Don’t be surprised if your support drops, mayors’ houses (if they even live in the hellscapes they govern) are burnt down and violent protests erupt.

But there is another way, although it is in the minority. Resources are always finite (the most basic economic principle not grasped by the ANC), but if you do the basics well and preserve what has already been built, there is no need for the private sector and community to spend extra funds to build the roads (pace libertarians).

The business sector shouldn’t be expected to fund and repair everything, although they can if they are able and willing to do it. It is ultimately a waste of their finite resources that could be expended on growing and improving their core business, delivering value and ultimately creating much-needed jobs. It is already clear that businesses – large and small – and the middle class are not gravitating to places with no or bad governance, but to places with clean and effective government. Clover moving out of Lichtenburg is a prominent case in point.  

The private sector and civil society are by their inherent nature and incentives better at innovation than government, and could therefore play an ancillary governance role. Instead of the antagonism and indifference shown by the ANC to these role-players in the spaces that they govern, some municipalities create an enticing environment for them in which to operate and make them partners – to the benefit of all involved. Midvaal in Gauteng and several Western Cape municipalities are, in partnership with the private sector, well on their way to become energy-independent and circumvent Eskom’s incurable failures.    

It all starts with an admission by government that while it can and must still play role – to the best of its ability – it doesn’t have to improve everything alone. The ANC refuses to do so and promises government perfection and ubiquity while grossly underdelivering. Everybody under their remit is paying the price while their own grip on power is failing. They pay lip-service to private-public partnerships (PPPs) while spurning it in practice. Although they won’t change and change is often glacial and messy, the status quo is simply untenable and change is not impossible.

Dr Eugene Brink is an entrepreneur, business consultant and independent commentator based in Paarl.