The lack of direction of our government came under the spotlight this week, with our best politicians swooshing around Washington, Beijing and Pretoria. While public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan was in China, deputy minister Obed Bapela felt the need to boast about donating classrooms and shoes to needy children.
This in the same week the auditor-general criticised the department in parliament for being an ineffective shareholder representative.
Another deputy minister, Alvin Botes at international relations & co-operation, was the most senior politician in a delegation to Washington. You’d be forgiven for wondering who Botes is and what he stands for. He is a politician of little consequence or standing, coming from the population-deprived Northern Cape. No-one remembers what he has done, thought, or said in his political career.
He now leads a delegation to the US to discuss matters of huge consequence, such as South Africa’s potential expulsion from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) and other thorny issues linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a fugitive in the eyes of the West.
In trade equity terms, Agoa is like affirmative action. It was Bill Clinton’s initiative to boost market access to the US for about 40 African countries. It eliminates import levies on more than 7,000 products, ranging from textiles to manufactured items.
Hosting Botes and his team was Nomaindia Mfeketo, our ambassador to the US. What is she famous for? She was the ANC’s last mayor in the City of Cape Town before power was grabbed, seemingly permanently, by the DA.
Our difficulty with foreign policy is consistent with our domestic policy struggles in an environment lacking leadership
Mfeketo is a typical South African ambassador: an irritation to the host country and lacking in visibility. Big centres like Berlin and London have become used to how we insult them by sending geriatrics as ambassadors. Our man in Germany, Stone Sizani, pops up on social media from time to time, showing us how wonderful his life is.
In the UK, we have Jeremiah Nyamane Mamabolo. No problem if you’ve never heard the name, and this is probably the first and last time you will come across it. South Africa keeps offending the West by cosying up to Putin, among other policy missteps in Washington, making talks about the future of Agoa difficult. Pretoria would have to offer a quid pro quo in talks about the renewal of Agoa.
That could be in the form of tax breaks. Also, sustainability is a growing variable in the conversations, pertaining to climate change and environmental, social and governance trends.
Anxiety around Agoa vibrates through to Berlin, as German car manufacturers producing vehicles in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape will be concerned about their ease of access to the US market. Conversations will naturally be more difficult in a week when the New York Times revealed that a sanctioned Russian plane was allowed to land at an army base in Pretoria.
Our difficulty with foreign policy is consistent with our domestic policy struggles in an environment lacking leadership. Thinkers such as Francois Fouche, a research fellow at the Gordon Institute of Business Science’s Centre for African Management & Markets, have questioned South Africa’s arithmetic. He wrote in the Financial Mail that “South Africa needs Russia like a fish needs a bicycle”.
The government chooses to hide behind the gospel of non-alignment, which masks a more significant problem associated with a lack of principle and vision. It is only normal for this lack of direction to take root. That the government is on autopilot is increasingly apparent. Writing in Business Day on Friday, Jonny Steinberg made the case that President Cyril Ramaphosa is overburdened by his job.
He wrote: “When I think of Ramaphosa, I remember a private lunch at which he was present some two decades ago. He was subdued for a long while until the conversation turned to large beasts, game rangers and poachers, and he suddenly came alive. It was clear that day that this was where his passion lay.”
Commentator Justice Malala puts it even better: Ramaphosa has “stopped even pretending to run the country”. At least, in all the nothingness permeating Pretoria, someone got new shoes this week.
• Mkokeli is lead partner at public affairs consultancy Mkokeli Advisory
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