The nation's shattered hopes and brittle resilience: a constitutional assessment of that speech (cont.)
Cynical observers could not fail to notice that the achievements of the Mbeki administration are now being trotted out to a bemused public as justification for the progress made by the ruling alliance in an effort to keep the voting masses onside. The "recall" of the former President was mentioned as evidence of the maturity of our nascent democracy. On the contrary, it is evidence of cadre deployment by-passing and overshadowing the requirements of the Constitution. This simply has to be the case when the three constitutional options for jettisoning any president were by-passed and ignored by the stratagem of his party, without reference to the Constitution, "recalling" the former president. It is true that the meek acceptance of his recall by Mbeki compounded party ascendancy and that his choice deprived the Parliament in which he was elected of the opportunity of debating the basis of his recall by his party. This is not a shining example of constitutionalism at work. It is constitutionalism being subsumed by the practice of cadre deployment in the ruling alliance. While not too much harm is done when those deployed are politicians in political positions, the same can not be said for the illegal use of cadre deployment in the public service. Sound human resource practices required by the Constitution itself do not include this insidious habit, which is still stoutly defended by the leadership, despite court findings outlawing it.
One of the more alarming aspects of the beautifully delivered speech by President Motlanthe was the reaction of the majority of parliamentarians to the well worn statistic that the number of people on welfare in South Africa has grown from 2.5 million odd in 1999 to over 12 million last year. (The latter figure includes 8,1 million children under 17 - evidence of widespread irresponsible parenting and the ravages of AIDS) This was met with rapturous applause, though perhaps not by Trevor Manuel. The fact is that it ought to elicit concern, rather than praise, that so many of our fellow citizens and other sojourners here have found it necessary to get themselves grants. The funding of such a large welfare sector ought to be a temporary measure in tough times, not the order of the day during a period of economic growth. It does not take great insight into fiscal affairs to work out that the expensively administered welfare sector is a drain on the economy. It is simply not sustainable in the tough times ahead, in which much reduced economic growth can be anticipated, to keep spending as we do on social welfare as the cost involved will not be viable if the amount received from taxpayers shrinks. A culture of entitlement to hand-outs and reliance upon government to nanny the nation is not to be encouraged. It is far better to take steps to train and up-skill, educate and mentor so that the masses left out of the cycle of progress and prosperity can join it, not drain it.
The honesty of the President's assessment of the increase in inequality in society, while refreshing, was not concretely addressed. The constitutional notion of introducing measures aimed at redressing inequality is somehow not connected to the manner in which the masses have been left behind in the new South Africa. Fully 47% of the nation lives in relative poverty. This too is not sustainable. The struggle of the people for freedom has been forgotten in the struggle for power which has split the ruling elite sooner than anyone anticipated; now both struggles continue unabated. The founding value of equality has to be realized if the dignity and freedom for all promised in the Bill of Rights is to be achieved. Adult education (not mentioned at all) and radical improvements in schooling are required. Schools are not delivering the right to basic education on such a grand scale that it is a national disgrace. The President was careful to skate around the large cracks in the education system by citing some insignificant statistics, acknowledged with a regal nod by the Minister of Education. The hard fact is that last year (final statistics are not yet available while some still wait for results) was a worse performance than the year before when only 42,000 functionally literate black (African) matrics emerged from the system out of 1,19 million who started out with high hopes 12 years earlier. Only 278,000 of these passed matric, so those with a valueless matric certificate, who can not find employment in the private sector - where acute awareness of the fake nature of matriculation certificates exists - join the public service as junior employees, especially if they fit the "cadre deployment" profile deemed more important than merit and capacity to do the job by the mandarins of Luthuli House. In this way the efficiency and effectiveness of the perfectly demographically representative public service is steadily undermined. Service delivery slides ever backwards, while cries of "capacity constraints" ring out from the ministries. The administration in the Eastern Cape has been called "terminally lethargic" by the Supreme Court of Appeal, utterly exasperated by the inability to actually pay those social grants, of which the ANC is so proud, to the people of the province who deserve them. "Educationally challenged" might be an equally accurate and damning description of the state of play in the public administration, a haven for the functionally illiterate and the deployed cadres of the ruling alliance.
Instead of recognizing that sustainable and viable measures to address the ever widening inequalities of the new South Africa are best effected by improving the education system, the President talks of accelerating affirmative action measures. His cronies liked this too, more applause, though only from government benches. Chief Buthelezi raised a stony eyebrow at this point in the state of the nation address, faithfully captured by etv's cameras. The failures and inherently unbalanced racist nature of the affirmative structures in place are ignored.
It was the things left unsaid in the state of the nation address that have those determined to see a constitutionally sound future most worried. When it came to re-affirming the foundational values by which we are supposed, according to the Constitution itself, to order our affairs, the President was prepared to go only so far as "transparency and openness" the somewhat blander cousins of "accountability and responsiveness" which went unmentioned. Inexcusably so, when without them in good measure we are sure to encounter shattered hopes and a ever more brittle resilience for those among the masses who find themselves ever more, instead of less, unequal than their more fortunate or well connected compatriots.
For inspirational value, the speech of Max Price, UCT vice chancellor, to the protesters marching in support of demands for a judicial inquiry into the arms deals outside parliament was better by far. His theme: the unacceptability of corrupt politicians and their lack of accountability.
Paul Hoffman SC
Senior Advocate of the High Court
7 February 2009.