Cadre deployment is to be expected everywhere. Incoming US administrations do it as a matter of course. But why have so many of the most influential of the SA cadres proved so very fallible, as revealed in gory detail by the Zondo commission?
It is our leaders who set the standard, showing that crime does pay given kickbacks to the right places. Short-term horizons — “if I don’t take advantage my insider competitors will” — help explain some of the observed behaviour.
There has been no lack of competition for the material opportunities offered in SA, which go well beyond what could be regarded as decent salaries and employment benefits. That includes generous rewards for serving on the boards or management teams of the semi-autonomous government bodies responsible for regulating private conduct.
Many have become notorious for providing opportunities for shopping/conference trips abroad and multiple contrived board meetings, for which valuable hourly attendance fees are unnecessarily charged.
The key posts in government departments and agencies turn over rapidly as the direction of the political wind changes, so the paranoia of those in office is not irrational. The large financial gains observed from BEE, without any obvious relationship between input and benefits, are a further influence.
That you can become fabulously rich when lucky in your partnerships — obtained through your political connections rather than your observable efforts or skills — and through doing business with the government on highly favourable terms because of these connections, is morally debilitating and sends the message that competence and dedication are not necessarily rewarded, nor essential to get on in life.
Repeat business is the most valuable source of sales and profits for any business. It helps keep owners and workers honest and competitive, striving to enhance valuable reputations for fair dealing. But government departments and agencies have monopoly power, so we need them more than they need us. We wait in line or online patiently, and smile obediently.
We are not customers but supplicants of government agencies that have great influence over us. Imagine life without a passport, visa, vaccination certificate or driving licence, a decent education or a well-organised casualty ward. We would like to believe public servants are trying as hard as they know how, to please us. Because that is the right, respectful way.
Unconstrained self-interest cannot fully explain what has gone on in SA. It calls for analysis by psychologists, philosophers and historians rather than economists. Do we understand the derivation of the values that determine the culture of the workplace? Can we explain how a sense of honour, honesty, patriotism or duty is developed to help set reasonable and realistic expectations of the supplier and user of services of all kinds?
Helpful attitudes and good performance are encouraged by a strong sense of vocation — a sense of a job worth doing well for what are widely recognised as appropriate material rewards that can be well understood and accepted by all parties involved. How are they cultivated? They are part of the implicit employment contract, or what can be understood more broadly as a social contract. The best standards do not emerge overnight and must be actively cultivated. Ethics have to be taught.
When regimes change and the power structures change radically with them, a strong sense of life-changing opportunities can become overwhelming and corrupting. The large gains achieved by some individuals in SA via misgovernment have been highly damaging to the incomes and prospects of the rest of us. It will take acknowledgement and understanding of this to get SA back on the path to an agreed, much improved moral order and stronger economy.
It calls for a new social contract, a Zondo-inspired devotion to doing your duty for fair reward and obeying and enforcing laws justly made and deservedly respected. A community of those wanting to give service rather than take unfair advantage of their favoured status must become the new morality.
• Kantor is head of the research institute at Investec Wealth & Investment. He writes in his personal capacity.
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