Every time a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s team puts forward a useful idea to rejuvenate our economy, a bigwig in Cosatu or the SACP shouts him or her down.
Ironically, the person who is doing the shouting usually happens to be a member of the Ramaphosa cabinet, which leads many of us to ask about the schizophrenia of our executive branch.
It’s a bit like a member of the Springbok team deliberately joining with opponents and frustrating his teammates as they try to make some progress in the Rugby World Cup.
It’s crazy.
It’s understandable that Ramaphosa is afraid of Cosatu and the SACP, though. They helped get him elected. A former secretary-general of the National Union of Mineworkers, he is a product of the unions. He has to play politics with them.
It is also understandable that he pussyfoots around the ANC secretary-general, Ace Magashule, and his band of supporters.
They want to get rid of him real quick, and have set their sights on the party’s national general council in July-August next year to humiliate him and then pull the trigger on him at a national executive committee meeting soon afterwards.
These are Ramaphosa’s ANC problems to sort out.
For the country, there are things he can do that are not dependent on his ANC problems and that can help him bring some confidence back to the populace and ignite some economic growth and job creation.
He should start with these low-hanging fruit immediately.
First, the home affairs ministry should, within days, present a framework to be implemented immediately, to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants.
It should be easy for talented professionals to move here and live here. Sadly, it’s not. Will Cosatu or Magashule whimper at this initiative? No. So just do it.
Ramaphosa should also get home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi in to explain why there are still debates about regulations on the travel of minors, for example, when this issue was supposed to have been sorted out ages ago. Further, why is it so difficult for tourists to visit SA? Ramaphosa should put Motsoaledi and the home affairs director-general in his reception hall until they have resolved this problem. They are costing the country billions in lost earnings and lost opportunities.
The president furthermore needs to send a clear message that we are done with wasteful state-owned enterprises (SOEs). He should immediately call minister Pravin Gordhan in, pick the worst of these SOEs and put at least one of them up for sale. If Cosatu believes it can run these companies it can go out and raise capital to buy them. I still see no logical argument for keeping SAA, which has just paid rival Comair a hefty R1.1bn plus R170m interest for behaving badly. That is taxpayers’ money.
Why is SAA, a monopoly, not making money? It’s laughable that we haven’t fixed or shut down this cash-guzzling monster and sent its wasteful former board to jail.
Have you tried starting a business in SA? You’ll be left absolutely exhausted, it’s so much hard work. From registering a company to the many permissions one needs to get from municipalities (which often seem to be on a go-slow), it’s clear we are not geared up for young entrepreneurs to create jobs. Or we don’t want them to.
Finally, Ramaphosa should call in the justice minister and ask him to search the internet and explain why there have been zero prosecutions of any of those implicated in state capture and other malfeasance.
How long does it take our prosecutors to put together a case? Journalists seem to have no trouble finding corruption and presenting evidence of it. Yet the state prosecutors seem to be absolutely failing to move on any case, from VBS Mutual Bank to Steinhoff and Guptagate. People are losing faith.
Implementing the measures outlined here will quickly begin to restore some confidence in our country. Crucially, they will send a signal that not everything that needs to be done is held hostage by internal ANC shenanigans or Cosatu and its endless threats.
Author F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that action is character.
Act, Mr President. Act.