The year 2020 is a big one for SA and President Cyril Ramaphosa, from both a foreign and domestic policy point of view. At home, the challenge is to revive a faltering, job-shedding economy that is weighed down, mainly, by failing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This week South Africans woke up to news that workers at Autopax, the state-owned bus service, will only receive half of their salaries; and that regional feeder airline SA Express was embroiled in a legal wrangle over an application to place it under business rescue, like SAA.
Most of the critical SOEs, such as Eskom, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), SA Post Office, Transnet, SAA and the Public Investment Corporation, are run by interim leadership teams — interim boards, CEOs and/or administrators, or business rescue practitioners in the case of Prasa and SAA. Complicating matters are the factions of the ANC using these public policy bodies to wage their internal battles.
Two interventions are expected to help fix the SOEs: first, an SOE council is due to be set up; and an SOE advisory panel is to be appointed. Exactly how these will stop ANC deployees from meddling is unknown.
Foreign policy remains an area where SA — and Ramaphosa — have yet to be tested. For much of the past decade SA’s foreign policy has been conducted mostly as an events-management exercise, with its diplomats taking strange positions in international forums, including some that were inconsistent with our constitutional values.
A few examples spring to mind: first, supporting Western air strikes on Libya was inconsistent with the AU’s stance and that of SA’s Brics allies (Brazil, Russia, India and China); second, law courts have found that failing to arrest former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was unlawful; and third, some votes at the UN were plainly inconsistent with the country’s values.
During the past decade, SA scored a diplomatic coup when Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, formerly SA’s foreign minister, was elected as chair of the AU Commission. Apart from formulating Agenda 2063, a long-term economic development blueprint for the continent, and trying to professionalise the AU bureaucracy in Addis Ababa, her tenure is largely considered a squandered opportunity.
That’s not her fault. Blame has to be shared between anti-SA forces, notably the francophone countries, and a lack of a coherent foreign policy from Pretoria. In the short term the implication is that SA won’t be able to field candidates for top continental jobs such as the African Development Bank’s presidency.
This is what Ramaphosa is inheriting. On Tuesday, he addressed the SA heads of mission – ambassadors and high commissioners — at their annual conference in Pretoria, giving the first glimpse of his foreign policy priorities in 2020. In essence he told the envoys that 2020 will be dominated by making Africa better, and that SA’s diplomats will also be expected to promote the African agenda.
In a week, Ramaphosa will be taking over the rotating chairmanship of the AU and that of the good governance platform known as the African Peer Review Mechanism at the ordinary summit in Ethiopia. This year, the AU has two major projects to drive: first, “Silencing the Guns in Africa 2020”, and second, implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by June 2020.
Both projects are potentially game-changing but are not without challenges, and as AU chair all eyes will be on Ramaphosa to shepherd them to maturity. In the first, he has to ensure that Africa reclaims the initiative in resolving African conflicts, especially the war in South Sudan and continued instability in Libya.
In his Tuesday address Ramaphosa seemed alive to this challenge when he warned: “In some cases these interventions [in South Sudan and Libya] seem to be driven by ulterior motives.” In theory, at least, the AfCFTA should not be a problem as the requisite number of countries have signed and adopted it as law. In practice, it will be difficult.
Like the rest of the world, the continent has not escaped the twin evils of nationalism and protectionism. For example, even though Nigeria has signed the AfCFTA, President Muhammadu Buhari is unenthusiastic, fearing the treaty could lead to imports that will undermine Nigerian industry through weak border customs control and flouting of the rules of origin. Allaying these concerns, real or imagined, should be at the core of the finalisation of rules before June.
Ramaphosa’s success as AU leader will depend on rebuilding the diplomatic capability that has been so badly weakened. The first step is filling all the many vacant diplomatic posts in SA’s missions abroad and strengthening his advisory capability to help him execute this daunting, yet equally exciting, task of leading the continent.
Finally, Ramaphosa should use his chairmanship of the AU to advance the cause of a better world. An urgent task will be getting the AU and Brics to join efforts to save the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Last Friday, for example, the EU signed a declaration that gets the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism to continue functioning despite the US-engineered impasse.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is executive for strategy and public affairs at the Small Business Institute.
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