EDITORIAL: Ramaphosa’s blog from another land
Ramaphosa’s rehash of the most basic of ambitions is indicative of the dearth of ideas that has paralysed the ANC and is strangling SA
If his first missive of the year is anything to go by, President Cyril Ramaphosa awoke from a weekend reverie to find himself in 2012. It was there that he happened upon the ruling party’s National Development Plan — in particular, chapter 13: "Building a Capable State".Its key takeout was a need for a number of specific things: a transformative, developmental state, a public service "insulated from undue political interference", officials with the experience and support to do their jobs, and clear governance structures for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to allow for accountability.And so, eight years on, Ramaphosa — who was deputy chair of the commission that produced the original document — blithely informs us that the "capable state" is "perhaps the most pressing" of SA’s challenges, before laying out the very issues identified in 2012 (and waving a hand vaguely at "district-based delivery" as a catch-all solution)."This is a task that does not capture the imagination of most peo...
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