LETTER: Why SA is heading in the wrong way, Mbeki

Former president Thabo Mbeki accompanied President Cyril Ramaphosa to Kigali, Rwanda, for the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the genocide. Mbeki took the opportunity to commend Rwanda for its economic progress, while expressing disappointment that SA is going the other way.

Mbeki pointed out that while our economy grew at 5% midway into the democratic era, growth has long-since stalled, and said we must ask what went wrong. It may assist in this interrogation exercise to point out a fundamental flaw in the ideology of the governing party.

This is the conviction that the workplace must be made to rapidly reflect the ethnic composition of the country. This prescription was enthusiastically carried out wherever the writ of the ANC runs, specifically in government and the state-owned enterprises. The results have been bitterly disappointing.

That the underlying deleterious effects of this have been exacerbated by state capture, cadre deployment — and lately by the so-called construction mafia — was surely predictable. The spoils of such diligent and exhaustive social engineering were simply too inviting.

A question Mbeki should ask himself is: why does the private sector, which has been slower to implement affirmative action — performed so much better than the state sector? The pace of transformation in the private sector has been sufficiently measured as to facilitate the conditions required for demographic representivity.

The underlying question, the answer to which may shed the most light on the dire state of our country, is: does it ever make sense to engage in rapid and enforced affirmative action where the disadvantaged constitute an overwhelming majority?

Countries that have sought redress via ethnic preferences tend to be those where the relationships are the reverse of SA's. Those are countries where the disadvantaged constitute a minority.

Where the disadvantaged are a minority it does not materially impair the skills base should the lesser skilled gain preference as the effect is marginal and the beneficiaries can advance via access to mentorship. However, the opposite is true in a country such as SA where the existing skills base is so thin. 

Perhaps the thoughtful Mbeki — and the ANC — should reflect on these questions. They may find the answers to our social and economic stagnation.

Willem Cronje
Cape Town

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