Statist ideology bars water-crisis solution
Mokonyane invites investment from private sector but creates conditions that drive it away
Ask how SA must solve its escalating water and sanitation crises and a chorus drowns out any sense that may be hidden among the replies. However complex and numerous the factors underlying the failures in service delivery, a statist ideology predetermines the search for solutions. This is no more evident than in the government’s call for private sector investment in water and sanitation infrastructure. Ordinarily, multiple if divergent ideas presented on a single platform would be a good thing. Ideas compete in the bidding for potentially lucrative government business as much as engineering prowess and managerial acumen do. The trouble is that only one class of idea is up for discussion: that which is defined and approved by the government and its agencies. The philosopher Noam Chomsky writes in The Common Good that the way to keep people passive and obedient is "to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage t...
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