“Spruced up” has become the dirtiest phrase in the South African lexicon. Interminably splashed across headlines during the G20 season, it conveyed a frustrating idea: our house would be spring-cleaned for visitors but damned be those who have to live in it the rest of the time.
Johannesburg is crumbling. Water shortages are unconscionable, infrastructure is lethally outdated and service delivery remains inconsistent.
The consensus is that the “sprucing up” had the desired effect. The G20 leaders’ summit ran smoothly, setting up a positive diplomatic outcome. But in this sense it was a fait accompli. The better the event, the bigger the backlash when the national pride dissipated.
Joburgers — who are resilient creatures, if not exactly phlegmatic — have no interest in erecting a facade for the benefit of others. No-one wants a Kigali-type international conference centre where darker truths are buried beneath manicured lawns and spotless streets.
For many it’s not the superficiality that troubles them. It’s the frustration that comes with the realisation of what is possible, which in turn is an ugly reminder of wasted potential.
But for many it’s not the superficiality that troubles them. It’s the frustration that comes with the realisation of what is possible, which in turn is an ugly reminder of wasted potential.
The South African story is often reduced to how its antagonists have dragged it down over the past three decades. However, it is the failure of any protagonist to advance the plot in a coherent, meaningful way that is just as egregious
After the euphoria of nascent democracy, no leader has succeeded in uniting everyone behind a national project. There has been no sustained driving force that galvanises business, political actors, civil society and the ordinary person.
President Cyril Ramaphosa had Ramaphoria, which for a brief moment promised to be that rallying cry. But it lacked enough specificity to be sustainable. Like his contemporary, former US president Joe Biden, it was predicated on merely offering an alternative, or at best a clean-up job, to the man who came before.
The political will has to be stronger.
Read: EDITORIAL: G20 unity is a win — but the real test starts now
The G20 brouhaha will feel eerily familiar to anyone who lived through the 2010 World Cup. Then too we achieved extraordinary feats in a short period of time. And it wasn’t just the “what” but the “how” that was impressive.
The country’s best, brightest minds were set to task on their areas of speciality. With timelines tight, signs of malfeasance and mismanagement had their oxygen snuffed out abruptly. (Though the broader story of corruption around that event is an entirely different question.)
Like the schoolboy at breaktime — or a columnist on a deadline — an impending finish line is a prerequisite to getting anything done. That is a problem and raises the question of why we are incapable of generating a will on our own.
The obvious riposte is that it is disingenuous to cherry-pick the G20 and World Cup as benchmarks because both represented clear financial windfalls. To which we should respond: are we so lacking in creativity that we have to rely on one-off flagship events instead of plotting our own long-term blueprint? Yes, speaking of “five-year plans” and the like can begin to sound awfully Maoist. But that is not what anyone is suggesting.
The power of accountability and political will itself should never be underestimated. Ramaphosa’s euphemistic description earlier this year of Joburg as “not a pleasing environment” was as searing a rebuke as one could ever get from the president. Its targets knew it and quickly got to work.
We need that sort of language independent of what is next on the calendar. Until that culture is inculcated, the best we can hope for is to be occasionally spruced up.
• Feltham is Business Day editor-in-chief.
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