MMUSI MAIMANE: Why I returned to politics with Build One SA

On Heritage Day I formally returned to the political arena as we launched Build One SA (Bosa) — a political platform that will challenge in the next national and provincial elections in 2024.

I did so because I hold a vision for this country that I cannot shake off or ignore. SA is a land of possibilities, making it possible for a new generation to lead. I am part of that generation. I have fought battles against corruption, racism and extremism, and in those battles I have experienced the taste of defeat and triumph. I have been the man in the arena and now return to the arena because the work is not done. I return to the arena with greater determination and more vigour than before. I am back — on my own terms.

I see no natural space for that vision within the current political landscape. As Kwame Nkrumah described it, “the forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart”, Yet current politics is obsessed with division, bickering, infighting and scrambling for a dwindling pot of resource.

If you are reading this you know the severity of the crisis SA faces: mass unemployment, energy shortages, a rising cost of living, a broken public healthcare system and a hollowed-out state. It’s reaching boiling point.

This is coupled with an overcomplication of the pathway to prosperity. The idea of who we are requires us to return to our beginning, our roots; the sense of shared humanity, knowing that our interdependent nature completes us. That is what underpins Bosa — the value of ubuntu. Due to the erosion of ethical leadership we’ve lost sight of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is a person through other people). Therefore, if one suffers, we all suffer.

It is here where corruption matters. We have men and women who choose to feast while allowing suffering people to die in hospitals without generators, to learn in schools without books, boards, and latrines. They even arrive at funerals of babies who died in broken sewerage in their fancy SUVs. This demonstrates a forgetfulness of being with fellow South Africans and building with them.

Economic offer

This is where the overcomplication is simplified. Once the value of ubuntu is established as the guiding prism, jobs and the economy, education, crime and safety as well as a functioning government run by the brightest minds can be addressed.

Our economic offer is to ensure dignity by putting at least one job in every home. We do this by creating an enormous National Venture Capital fund that will invest in microenterprise and in brilliant ideas coming out of our universities. We localise our economy by ensuring that our township economy is well managed and that the electricians, plumbers, caterers and tent-makers have the support they need to win in business, feed their families, and hire the youth in their communities. The formal economy must be freed up to operate and grow.

Our education offer is to empower state schools to become as competitive as private schools. This begins with early childhood development centres. I know their power because I attended one at an early age and it made all the difference. It meant my mother could carry on her job as a cashier and my father as a factory worker. Crucially, it meant in the first 1,000 days my brain could be developed, taught and educated.

We need this to be a reality for each child, and that by the time they enter primary school each teacher is well paid, and schools have the best infrastructure. No more pit latrines and no more powerful unions who lock out our children. Then, we must ensure that the reality of free tertiary education is realised. The solution to unemployment is relevant skilled education.

Our immigration offer is to regain global respect in how we treat the immigrant, and to revive our foreign policy beyond a country still stuck in the Cold War era. And our safety and security offer is centred on empowering the SA Police Service and local communities. No tourist will come to our shores and no woman will feel safe in our country unless we fix policing. Selecting the most competent, qualified commissioner and decentralising our police means crime can be responded to and deterred on a community-by-community basis. We also use big data to allocate resources to hot spots.

Work hard

Then the most crucial aspect of all. Who operationalises this vision? Bosa provides the answer as an umbrella body to unearth and elect home-grown leadership in every community countrywide.

We want the best of the best for our government: doctors, nurses, schoolteachers, entrepreneurs, miners, factory workers, IT operatives, academics, environmentalists, businesspeople and governance specialists — people who work hard, know how to get things done, and want to see SA thrive.

Such individuals are out there and desperately want to build SA. It is our job to find them and ensure they are elected to public office.

These are leaders who are tired of government failure and are bound together by the values of ubuntu — a philosophy that gives us the language of our dreams. That we are together.

• Maimane is Leader of Build One SA.