Yacoob Abba Omar confirms the sorry state of SA in his most recent column and bemoans the endless talk shops, commissions and scenarios in which he is honest enough to admit he has participated, but that have produced so little (“Was Mandela month a time of hopelessness?”, August 16).
What is his recommendation and solution? Here it is: “Standing up against all acts of racism and gender-based violence”. This will “restore dignity and contribute to social cohesion” and hasten the formation of a “social compact”. This social compact is apparently the magic solution to “tackle the problems of economic growth, poverty and inequality”!
On the same page there was an article by Jabulani Sikhakhane that answered this nonsense in a way that is obvious to everybody except people like Dr Omar who are employed in institutes for strategic reflection (“Oh, for a great intimidator to get things moving”, August 16). Sikhakhane recognises that “the three layers of government are paralysed by inertia”, and by the “stealing of public resources” by public servants and government. That’s it: governmental incompetence and corruption — simple.
The fashionable idea that a “social compact” with “civil society and business” can somehow overcome this incompetence and corruption is a joke. And those who are laughing loudest are precisely those who are incompetent and corrupt. It is not the job of civil society to build and run schools and educate our citizens, drive a health service and hospitals, build and repair our roads, deliver electricity and myriad other things needed to run a country. That is the job of government.
The ultimate way in which civil society can contribute to overcoming the incompetence, cadre deployment and corruption that is sinking this county, is the vote — vote them out of office! But this is a slow process that may take decades. In the meantime, 13-million disenchanted South Africans who could vote but don’t bother, constitute the single biggest “party” in this country.
So no, Dr Omar, a social compact is not the solution to our ills. It’s just another talk shop.
Jonathan Schrire, Kenilworth
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.