As Bradley van Sitters drew on the names of Khoi ancestors Autshumato and Krotoa there was a crucial request he made in his praise prayer at the state of the nation address last week: “Creator, bless,” he beseeched, “the words of this leader so it can strengthen us.”
These words, from the Khoekhoegowab language, wittingly or unwittingly captured the weight of expectation on the president’s first address to the joint houses of parliament.
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The nation expected a well of strength and clarity from the address. The reactions after it were an indication that it fell short of some of these expectations. Not that too much should be placed on a speech never intended to spell out the policy direction of the sixth administration in detail, but an outline of key goals. And goals there were in the speech. In the final appraisal, it is worth noting that it is the manner in which these lofty goals shape up to SA’s social reality that will determine whether the speech struck the right balance.
Bullet trains don’t run without electricity and might be disastrous if we apply the service and governance ethos we’ve applied to our existing passenger and freight rail ‘services’.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is an adept orator, but what was not said was more revealing than what was. There was hardly a mention of the crisis and looming blackout at the public broadcaster. Mention was made of Phakamani Hadebe’s departure from Eskom and the critical role the utility plays in the economy, but the departure of Vuyani Jarana and the entrenched crisis at SAA was left out, perhaps for finance minister Tito Mboweni to pick up in his budget.
There was no news on the “unbundling” of Eskom, but then a “no mention” may be a better prospect than grand pronouncements in a context where the communication machinery of the state and the ANC has in recent times had as much form as the Proteas’ top order at the World Cup.
However, there were things said that gave clues about how the sixth administration will undertake its work, what it would prioritise and deem important and what its grand “meta-narrative” and legacy will be. It is clear that the president has spent a lot of time musing over the development project his Chinese counterpart leads, with its mega-cities, district-level planning and “bullet trains”.
But bullet trains don’t run without electricity and might be disastrous if we apply the service and governance ethos we’ve applied to our existing passenger and freight rail “services”. Notable, however, was some of the direction provided by the president on plans to kickstart key sectors and sort out key economic debates crucial to efforts to get our economy in better shape.
Ramaphosa was firm on the need to transform the communications landscape and the role of spectrum and data in that debate. There was some interesting “middle of the road” gymnastics on the central bank matter, and understandably so. No debate on monetary policy is clear-cut.
The microeconomic issues that emerged in the speech were also revealing. As was the special mention of business and state-driven private and public growth initiatives and the sector “master plans” associated with that initiative.
It is crucial to consider this when we think about the role micro-level infrastructure plays in determining firm-level investment decisions. Take, for instance, the challenge raised by Nampak a few months ago about logistics pricing. The company revealed that it costs 250% more to take iron ore from Sishen to the Vaal for beneficiation into steel than it does to ship that raw iron ore to Saldanha for export to China. What (dis)incentives do port charges and the configuration of our infrastructure create for investment in local value addition and jobs? These are the “words of strength” we were expecting, and in small part we heard them on Thursday. The reality, however, is that our expectations were not just of strength but for direction as well.
In this regard, the real clues on the way forward must emerge from the sector and departmental plans coming out of the various ministries. Only then will we know if the president’s dream has substantive and goal-driven legs and whether the nation can, as the president suggested quoting Nigerian scholar Ben Okri, arrive at harvest as gatherers of new fruit.
• Cawe (@aycawe), a development economist, is MD of Xesibe Holdings and hosts MetroFMTalk on Metro FM.
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