Restore the dream of 1994

When African National Congress members congregate in Stellenbosch this week to discuss the future of the organisation, they will also be making decisions that have a direct effect on the country’s future.

This is an opportunity to critically assess the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses.

The ANC has reason to be proud of its achievements. It has managed to steer the country from the brink of anarchy and achieve a level of reconciliation between the races.

Through the reconstruction and development programme (RDP), devised with its alliance partners and social movement formations, the ANC sought to give governance a people-centred character. The RDP, it was hoped, would become the basis for policy formulation. It promised to deliver social services and infrastructure to communities that were previously marginalised by apartheid.

The promise of heavy state involvement in the redevelopment of post-apartheid South Africa had the potential to uplift living standards, and create jobs through public works programmes and skills development. This programme was meant to address the economic imbalances created by top-down apartheid policies that disempowered the majority of the population. In essence the ANC wanted to create a state that was developmental in nature and emphasised the need to redress inequalities through the involvement of the government in major projects.

This state intervention was exemplified by the extension of such services as water, electricity and telecommunications to the far-flung regions of South Africa, and the provision of housing to millions of poor people.

In recent months various government departments have introduced progressive Bills, such as the Community Reinvestment Bill and Bills to protect domestic and farm workers from exploitation. The promotion of emerging black businesses through the Black Economic Empowerment process has the potential to benefit South Africa in a meaningful way, if it is balanced with a tangible economic programme that creates jobs.

If the ANC is revelling in these achievements, it is also confronted with serious challenges. The gains of the RDP have been muddied by external factors such as neoliberalism and globalisation. While the ANC is committed to its historic task — that of transforming society and uplifting the poor — the government has found itself between a rock and a hard place.

The party has had to contend with the fact that it took power at a time when the predominance of economic globalisation was forcing nation-states to relinquish their active role in promoting and protecting local economic development programmes that sustain communities. The notion of economic globalisation and neo-liberalism is to leave the economic market to its devices without intervention by an activist nation state. Instead the nation state plays the role of the policeman over its people.

This was the reality that confronted the ambitious ANC during its early years in governance.

After two years in power, the ANC in 1996 developed a new programme: the growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy. This it did without consulting its alliance partners and civil society, as was the case with the drafting of the RDP. Gear emphasised privatisation of public assets and outsourcing certain functions of local government.

It also included lowering restrictions on movement of capital to and from South Africa, and lifting protections on local companies so that global corporations could compete with local companies as equals.

The consequence has been the flight of capital from South Africa as local companies have relocated their operations and listed on the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street.

The developmental nature of the post-apartheid state, while still cherished by the ANC, is undermined by Gear. It has led to tensions within the alliance because it has resulted in massive job losses and an economy that has failed to create new jobs despite growing at a reasonable rate.

The political tension in the alliance has led to accusations that certain people within the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) are conspiring to change the ANC’s nationalist character to a socialist orientation. Counter accusations are that there is a clique within the ANC bent on splitting the alliance.

These tensions can be addressed by revisiting those aspects of Gear fiercely opposed by the SACP and Cosatu. Perhaps it is also time for a review of Gear involving all members of the alliance and progressive civil society. The ANC also has to review the unilateralist approach to policy-making, which is not in keeping with the collective culture that has held the alliance together. The multi-sector growth summit, scheduled for March, is an opportunity to consider the aspects of Gear that cause uneasiness within the alliance.

During its navel-gazing exercises next week, the ANC has to consider that some of its policies — such as the privatisation of public assets and service provision — have led to serious confrontation between its elected public officials and the communities they preside over.

In townships such as Tembisa on the East Rand residents protested against the installation of a prepaid metering system. The community believed it was not consulted and claimed the new system was not acceptable as it would facilitate electricity cut-offs to residents who had good reasons for not paying. The new prepaid system was destroyed by residents angry at the lack of consultation by the local city council.

In Tsakane in the East Rand in 1998 residents burned municipal properties and attacked councillors’ homes in response to the government’s attempts to attach the properties of residents who were not paying for services.

The delegates in Stellenbosch this week will be well aware of this anger as they chart the way forward.

Hopefully they will be able to honestly assess the successes and shortcomings of past programmes and restore the developmental character of the post-apartheid state the ANC set out to create in 1994.

Mzwanele Mayekiso is senior lecturer at Wits University’s school of architecture and planning

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