ANC leaders have substituted policies with watered-down pledges

State of local government progressively built on successive years of dedicated policy implementation has been regressing under the watch of the current party leadership

The ANC’S policy path to creating a better life for all was clear in the early years of our democracy, when the older generation of the liberation struggle was in office.

Not any more, as a politically cunning attitude has, over the years, increasingly engulfed the urgency for a decisive implementation of party policies and made it harder to forecast a brighter future for the party beyond its 55th national conference as the centre of power in our society.

Gone are the days of optimism that prevailed between the 51st and 53rd conferences, when political reports used to cross reference progress achieved in preceding years convincingly.

Doing so demonstrated the consistency of the party’s policies and the uninterrupted continuity of the citizens’ struggle under the ANC leadership to accomplish the objectives spelt out in party policy documents and conference resolutions.

Instead, debilitating divisions have stifled the policy space to ensure that, unless the party introduces radical changes at its conference and embarks on a deliberate grassroots implementation process in the coming months, we are in the final stretch of what will have been 28 years of Anc-dominated rule in SA.

In the weeks after the June 2022 policy conference, there has been sharp criticism from notable commentators and social partners that the post-centenary ANC since 2012 does not do policy any more.

It does pledges instead.

Its supporters long for the glorious, caring, and revolutionary ANC that sets high human development standards.

Indecisiveness has undersigned every action on policy — consider the decade-long pledge to introduce the National Health Insurance that is yet to become law.

Or the opening of world-rated universities, expanding student financial aid for tertiary education, building smart cities, eradicating informal settlements, and eliminating crime and gender-based violence.

It wants a just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Yet it continues to grant mining licences to international companies without consulting the affected communities and at high risk to the environment and sustainable livelihoods of communities dependent on natural resources.

It also adopted a new base document aimed at ensuring and encouraging the party on a path to renewal — titled: “Unity and renewal to advance SA’S gains ”— but who knows how and when?

In 1997, at the party’s 50th conference, former president Nelson Mandela listed eight strategic matters the party had to address.

Since then, these have become the consistent landmark reference points, with most being very relevant today. He said: “Fourth — that process of reconstruction and development will also have to encompass the spiritual life of the nation, bearing on the moral renewal of individuals and institutions, as well as the ideas and practice of a new patriotism.

“Fifth — the success of our process of reconstruction and development will, to a good extent, depend on the peoples of our region of Southern Africa and Africa as a whole themselves achieving the same goals that we pursue, of democracy, peace, prosperity and social progress, within the context of an African renaissance.

“Eighth — the objective of reconstruction and development cannot be achieved unless the ANC and the rest of the progressive movement of our country are strong and united around the realisation of clear policy objectives which actually result in reconstruction and development.”

It is always the case that politics turns on economics and that the dominant question of any policy assessment that feeds into the next election campaign requires intense scrutiny.

It presents a version of the question Ronald Reagan asked of Americans in 1980: “Are you better off now than you were four [or 28] years ago?”

The ANC should be heading to a crushing defeat in 2024. Not least because of the turmoil within its ranks.

Take the party’s policy commitments to guarantee that our system of local government responds fully to its increased responsibilities brought about by converting policies into legislation and funded government programmes.

One of these relates to ensuring that our leaders in local government, the mayors and councillors, are adequately empowered to discharge their responsibility of leading the municipalities by defeating the concept that service in local government means “catching the last coach of the gravy train”.

It undertook to treat local government as the front desk in our system of governance, the point at which we achieve customer satisfaction.

The reality is that the state of local government progressively built on successive years of dedicated policy implementation across the country has been regressing under the watch of the current party leadership.

In September, the National Treasury warned that 151 municipalities across the country were teetering on the brink of collapse while 43 had already collapsed and required urgent intervention to rescue them.

Another five years we spent pushing the boulder up the hill, only for it to roll back down in 24 months punctuated by the 2021 local government elections.

Earlier in the year, auditorgeneral Tsakani Maluleke said that the lack of improvement in municipal outcomes in 2020/21 was an indictment on the entire local government accountability ecosystem, which failed to act and arrest the decline that continued to be characterised by poor service delivery in municipalities.

About 300 Kwazulu-natal municipal councillors in 54 municipalities indicated in a skills audit that they still needed the training to read and write critical reports such as integrated development plans and financial statements in their last year in office.

This situation has long been a widespread and neglected need, leading to a worrying impression that service in local government indeed means “catching the last coach of the gravy train”.

The country’s economic pain from policy neglect should spell political agony for the government in charge.

Not least because, despite the party’s convenient attempts to pretend SA’S problems were “made in the apartheid era, the nine wasted years era, or the coronavirus era”, voters know that the hole we’re in grew much deeper five years ago.

It is mainly because of contradictions on crucial policy issues.

What’s more, the remedy imposed by reality on the Anc-led government tears apart the alliance that put it in power.

In an unprecedented move, Cosatu barred President Cyril Ramaphosa from addressing this year’s May Day rally and prevented the ANC delegation from speaking at its national congress.

This hostility is an indictment against the ANC’S failure to implement its policies favouring working-class families.

It is primarily because of the denied promise of the fruits of the ANC policies and conference resolutions, which denial has substituted the deserved fruits with a more emollient version of the ANC’S austerity agenda towards workers.

Meanwhile, most workingclass families still vote for the ANC because they believe, often as a matter of theology, in a developmental state where the government must play a central role in economic development and improvement of living standards.

Yet, their party stifles economic growth that could result

... a politically cunning attitude has, over the years, increasingly engulfed the urgency for a decisive implementation of party policies and made it harder to forecast a brighter future for the party beyond its 55th national conference as the centre of power in our society

in sustainable jobs that pay a living wage.

Most marginalised party supporters appear prepared to stomach the outgoing leadership’s medicine for now, but only because they craved calm after the turmoil of the Zuma era.

Their patience will not hold for long, so the new leadership will soon deal with a wild party heading for a humiliating role in coalition government politics.

It has also lost the knack for discipline to course-correct long ago.

Put all that together, and you get the expectation most ANC members admit privately: that these are the end of days of ANC dominance in government as we know it.

The best they can do is hope that something comes along — that inflation falls, interest rates ease, growth returns — and voters give them one last chance.

But few are betting on it. On the contrary, most are bracing for coalition governments spiced up by an increasing prominence of independent candidates in the national political landscape.

So yes, the gloom descending on the ANC’S historic role as the glorious movement of the people is now so thick that the simple logic of inability to marshal the strength to make possible “Unity and renewal to advance SA’S gains” should see the party beaten in 2024.

In this year’s conference, the economics of that will become simpler and starker — but the politics necessary to trigger fundamental changes in the party will have just got trickier.

Hopefully, like the biblical Samson, who suffered humiliation from his weaknesses, the ANC’S hair might grow and strength be regained.

Dispatch in Dialogue is a weekly feature where thought leaders will tackle topical issues. If you have any subject that you strongly feel must be debated, please send an e-mail to enerstm@dispatch.co.za