Business and civil society must be drivers of renewal
Peter Bruce rightly identifies the familiar maladies of poor leadership, neglected maintenance, weak accountability and the urgent need for practical skills development (“Brick by brick we can fix what’s broken in us all”, July 30).
These are important observations, but they are scarcely novel. South Africans have endured variations of this diagnosis for more than two decades.
The challenge before the country is no longer identifying its failures. We know, with painful clarity, what is broken. The more urgent task is to determine how citizens, businesses and communities can rise above the recurring failures of the state and become active architects of national renewal.
The belief that our fortunes depend chiefly on electing better leaders risks obscuring the considerable capacity that already resides within society. South Africa’s most effective interventions increasingly arise not from the machinery of government, but from business partnerships, civil society organisations, community initiatives and individuals who are unwilling to remain passive while the state falters.
Rather than rehearsing the well-documented shortcomings of the government, the national conversation should turn decisively towards citizen agency. How do we equip communities to restore local infrastructure? How do we mobilise retired professionals to mentor young artisans?
How do we build civic movements that hold municipalities to account while also helping them recover capability? How do business, labour and civil society forge practical coalitions to solve problems at the local level?
The lesson from countries that have navigated periods of institutional decline is that strong societies can, for a time, compensate for weak governments. Waiting for political renewal is not a strategy. Building resilient communities, supporting entrepreneurship, developing skills, strengthening civic institutions and creating local accountability mechanisms are the more durable foundations of recovery.
Bruce is correct that progress is built “brick by brick”. The missing insight is that many of those bricks must be laid by citizens themselves. South Africa’s future cannot be entrusted solely to politicians who have commandeered the country for their own ends.
The sooner we move from government dependency to citizen-led renewal, the sooner meaningful change can take root. John F Kennedy said it best, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
John Catsicas
Via email
Transformation policies a cause of investment drought
Neva Makgetla’s most recent column refers (“Making employment a priority”, July 28).
Low employment is a result of a lack of investment from the government and local and foreign investors. Everybody across the political spectrum understands that we need to ramp up employment, but our regulators (the ANC) do not understand, or do not want to understand, what is required to attract investors.
Instead we have policies of affirmative action, employment equity, the Mining Charter, cadre deployment and all industrial policies focusing on so-called transformation (which is really just black nationalism), which all do the opposite of attracting investment.
Foreign and local direct investment have all but disappeared, so South Africa now has to rely on the government or state-financed investment. But the state’s portion of GDP is only 30%, so it’s really only the private sector and foreign investors that can drive investment if any significant growth is to take place.
Transformation policies do the opposite.
Ian Ferguson
Via Business Day online
Direct appeal in Ramaphosa interdict case destined to fail
Tara Roos’s article refers (“ATM to approach top court on Ramaphosa impeachment process interdict”, July 26).
The ATM launched an urgent application on Saturday asking the Constitutional Court to hear the matter urgently during the week of August 10-14, to grant leave for a direct appeal, and for the court to replace the high court order with one dismissing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s application and ordering him to pay costs.
Roos summarised the arguments raised by ATM for the relief it is seeking. Since then the EFF has also joined the fray.
The application is ill-founded and will fail, because the application is made directly to the Constitutional Court, as opposed to following the litigation ladder of applying first to the high court and only if unsuccessful to the Supreme Court of Appeal and finally to the Constitutional Court. The latter will not permit this abuse of jumping the gun and will simply dismiss the application with costs.
In any event, and only as a matter of interest, an interdict order is an interim order and the losing party has no right to seek leave to appeal.
Alick Costa
Via email
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