Implementation of the NDP seems to be hampered by many obstacles and not least by the dissenting voice of the ultra left politics – Numsa and the EFF. A conference I attended where an EFF central member articulated their opposed view to the NDP on the basis that its economic premise and fundamentals were flawed and that is, the fact that a pre-condition or pre-requisite to the success of the plan is that the economy should be growing at 5%. The delegate further insinuated that the NDP was a useless document and that the country will wait until 2030 and nothing would have changed. Well, I had not quite read the NDP except for excerpts and commentaries prior to the conference and I was almost convinced that indeed the sum did not add up. This view by the said delegate made me to go and read the NDP and go through it with a fine tooth comb. Having critiqued the document and done an appraisal of same, I am convinced that the explicit and implied message in the document recognises that the GDP yield will be different each year and that an average over the 20 year period from 2011 should be 5.4%. This is not rocket science at all; anybody who has done basic Statistics would acknowledge that the average is the sum of all GDP scores over the entire 20 years divided by the number of years. One can only conclude therefore that the said delegate was either deliberately misleading a group of ignorant professionals including myself or he himself had not done his homework properly which would on its own be an indictment as the said delegate is a respected professional. However this is neither here nor there and it is besides the point that I want to drive home in this discussion.
Numsa has also articulated its views and I make a supposition that the rejection of the NDP from that front is its proposal of reviews and adjustments to the labour relations landscape, inter alia, which seems to be advocating for business interests over those of workers, a move which could leave workers high and dry and in a lurch, eroding labour relation gains since the dawn of democracy.
These aversions to the document beg the question, who are the architects and engineers of the NDP. One would have thought that business, labour, government and society at some forum, NEDLAC, if it still exists, or something, participated in the conceptualisation, scoping, brainstorming and finally charting the course for the country and the production of the final product, the NDP. If such a consultative process did not take place, how could anybody think that the uptake of the final product would be a logical step? If such a consultative process did not occur, further questions would ensue such as:
- Who are the engineers of the NDP?
- What are their interests?
- Who are the stakeholders and interest groups?
If answers are not adequately provided, then an impression that technocrats and bureaucrats produced the document becomes inevitable. If that perception is correct, then a further question arises, why did the ANC recall Thabo Mbeki as the President of the Country because among other matters raised when he was recalled was his economic policy -GEAR, allegedly designed by technocrats and bureaucrats. If again this is not answered comprehensively, further questions must be asked: What policy shifts and fundamental change has the present administration effected, that is a noticeable departure from the previous administration, apart from rolling out the HIV/AIDS programme, which I commend it for, and again introducing new departments, hopefully to give focus to its programmes of action and of course under new faces – Ministers and MEC’s and tinker with the system and tweak programmes here and there. I may add here that I find it funny that a specific Minister who was not appointed a government Minister at the time of the previous administration, was chopping government left, right and centre but now that the same individual has become Minister ‘serving government at the pleasure of the President’ has become the number one fan and supporter of government and yet no significant and noticeable change of policy from the previous administration. Makes you wonder sometimes if politics is not about idiosyncrasies and personal egos and sometimes downright tribal and ethnic issues manifesting, camouflaging, disguising and playing out themselves as ideological and political differences. Let me further make a note that the previous administration was criticized of what others referred to as a ‘Xhosa Nostra’, which apparently had developed in the ranks of government. Consequently silent debates on the fringes of mainstream political discourse and policy issues in the build up to the ANC 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in 2007 included purging the country of this scourge. Perception or reality, if such practice existed within the ranks of government, as is corruption, that should have been removed ‘without flinching or blinking an eye’. It is, however, interesting that the present administration is accused of the Zulu hegemony, again a silent debate on the fringes of mainstream politics. A module In Marketing Communications covers design appeals and here you will soon learn about egoistic and altruistic appeals and I think that if my suspicion above is correct, then these individuals have mastered the art of converting selfish interest to pose as the interests of the majority. We must as a country always guard against sliding into George Orwell’s [Eric Arthur Blair] satire – The Animal Farm because of human follies and unbridled human desires, tendencies and selfish ambitions that can sacrifice human virtues at the altar of political expediency and convenience. Well, that is my bit to Nation Building. Back to the point!
The point was that I find NDP a reasonably document and charting the course for a future that we all aspire and hope for as a Nation. There are however parts of it that are unrealistic and these must be engaged with to make adjustments and to bring the broader and divergent stakeholder interests to a convergence point and thereafter go full steam ahead to implement the document. Practising in the BEE space I do recognise that some of the changes in the Revised BEE Codes [RCoGP] are informed by this document, a nobly and plausibly move by the dti for being pro-active and decisive, extrapolating and implementing these recommendations already to take the country forward. However I must warn, as I always do, that without new systems to police the BEE verification process, very little if any will change by 2030 in the BEE space and, of course, the structural impediments in the entire South African Economy will remain the same if ownership patterns of the means of production and capital do not alter and / or are not tampered with radically. The BEE verification component is an integral and pivotal part of that change but ironically it is the weakest link in the system and if no attention is paid to it, it will erode any gains intended by this piece of legislation – the BEE Act.
The author of this article can be contacted for strategic alignment of BEE by small, medium-sized or large companies.
