The political parties negotiating a new governing arrangement need to agree on an urgent reform programme to deal with the country’s most pressing challenges, Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) executive director Ann Bernstein said on Wednesday.
The think-tank has identified five priorities the new government needs to address urgently in the first 180 days to deal with the multiple crises facing the country. Bernstein said a new approach to governance was needed. Economic growth had stagnated and declined, unemployment and crime were among the worst in the world and the state was collapsing.
More of the same slow, last-minute reforms would not be good enough. Urgent action was required to turn the country around.
“Arresting SA’s terminal decline requires a new approach for government. Hard choices must be made about people, about policies and about how best to get things done. Time is running out. The time for halfhearted and half-baked reform is over; the time for fundamental change is here,” Bernstein said at a webinar to launch the CDE’s project, Agenda 2024: Priorities for SA’s new government.
The five key priorities that were worked out by CDE with business leaders, experts, former public servants and academics over the last six months, are to fix the state, drive growth and development by freeing up markets and competition, build a new approach to mass inclusion, deal with the fiscal crisis and strengthen the rule of law. The CDE will be releasing reports on various actions that need to be taken within the five priority areas in the coming weeks.
In terms of fixing the state, the CDE believes the number of cabinet ministers must be reduced from 30 to 19 and the most qualified people must be appointed to senior positions in the public service and state-owned companies.
SA needs a new approach to mass empowerment that helps the poor instead of enriching the elite.
— Ann Bernstein, Centre for Development and Enterprise executive director
According to the CDE, to drive growth and development, the state should not intervene in markets. The government must stop blocking private sector activities through over regulation. Public/private partnerships should be pursued but should not be used to prop up failing state monopolies. Bernstein said market driven economic growth would help transform SA more quickly than anything else.
On inclusion, the CDE believes SA’s approach to transformation has failed. “SA needs a new approach to mass empowerment that helps the poor instead of enriching the elite. We need to incentivise low-skilled employment and we need to redirect funds from government to the private sector to expand opportunities for black entrepreneurs,” Bernstein said. State funds to support black entrepreneurs should be redirected into two or three big funds and agencies in the private sector.
To deal with the fiscal crisis, the CDE maintains the government should stop spending money it doesn’t have, such as on National Health Insurance and a basic income grant; must moderate increases in average public sector pay; and fundamentally reform public procurement to obtain value for money.
The rule of law needed to be strengthened and the criminal justice system reformed by, among other things, reinvigorating the National Prosecuting Authority, which has failed to hold powerful people to account, Bernstein said.
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