Comments of the TMF Patron, Thabo Mbeki, at the 22nd National Conference of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM)
25 September 2023
Programme Director,
President and leaders of the SA Association of Public Administration and Management;
The Board of the Association;
Distinguished participants:
I apologize that it has proved impossible for me to join you physically at this important 22nd National Conference of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management, SAAPAM, and thank you for giving me the possibility to speak to you virtually.
As you know, over the next few days you will be discussing under the important and timely theme — 'Repositioning African governments in the changing global order and disorder'.
I hope that in this context you will be able to focus on a few African countries in some detail, using them as exemplars of what might be generic challenges facing Africa as a whole.
In that context, I will make some remarks about South Africa, conscious that some of our national experience may be relevant in terms of the continental perspective.
In an article entitled 'State of the Nation: SA coming apart at the seams? We need to tread carefully', published earlier this year in March, the senior News24 journalist, Pieter du Toit wrote:
'South Africa has always been a country beset by instability, injustice and inherent tension...lf you look at our history of, say, the last 150 years, there really have been very few decades of relative calm and stability which saw the country strain forward in any meaningful way...
'Our current malaise should therefore be considered against the backdrop of what this country is, and the citizens who live in it:...
'All the metrics show that we're in steep decline. The economy is shrinking and unemployment is increasing, our collapsing electricity parastatal is causing untold national harm, infrastructure across the land is failing, and criminality — including institutional corruption facilitated by the ruling political class — seems rampant. Not to mention the state of healthcare and education, where the country spends billions of rand without improving outcomes. '
I imagine that none of us would contest this characterisation of South Africa. After all, indeed many of the metrics show that our country is in steep decline!
I therefore hope that this 22nd National Conference of SAAPAM will pose and answer these two questions honestly:
- what contribution, if any, have the public administration and management made to this steep decline?; and,
- what contribution can and should public administration and management make to pull our country out of this steep decline, and place it on the opposite trajectory?
Of particular importance in this regard is the Mission of SAAPAM which, as you know, says:
'The mission of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM) is to encourage and promote good governance and effective service delivery through the advancement of professionalism, scholarship and practice in public administration and management. '
Obviously, the question arises, does the fact that our country is in steep decline mean that SAAPAM has failed in its task — "to encourage and promote good governance and effective service delivery"?
The current CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, Dr John Endres, has taken the matter of our steep decline further by answering the question — where will it end?
Dr Endres spoke at the CATO Institute in Washington DC in July this year about the future of South Africa, his Address entitled 'The weakening of the detrimental state'.
Here is part of what he said: 'Instead of political currents, a different trend will shape South Africa's outcomes over the medium term. This is the receding power of the state — its loss of authority and credibility, its inability to translate plans into action, and the growing disconnect between the ruling elites and those they govern.
This process will play out over a period of years but is already well underway...
'As the state becomes less and less capable, it is being increasingly bypassed by private actors. This process has been underway for a considerable time already. Those who can afford it rely on private healthcare and schooling, of a quality far higher than that provided by the state. In the absence of reliable electricity from the state-owned utility, those who can afford it install solar power on their rooftops...
'Such replacements of state services by private entities are taking place all over South Africa. In urban areas, residents' associations are fixing potholes, while in rural areas, farmers do the same. Civil society organisations like Solidarity are building technical schools and universities. Trash recyclers control traffic intersections when the lights are out. Large corporations provide security along freight rail corridors, while mining companies build clinics and provide housing and water near mines. Providers of mediation and arbitration services help resolve disputes without the involvement of the courts. Farmers help repair the water infrastructure where state neglect has left it derelict...
'This is where South Africa's greatest opportunity for the future is to be found: in its innovative and resilient private sector and civil society, which are solving problems in the growing absence of the state, and doing so successfully. In years to come, South Africa may well become a case study of how private initiative succeeds where states fail.'
I consider these observations by Dr Endres to be of great importance and therefore request that this 22nd National Conference of SAAPAM consider them with very close attention.
With your permission, let me repeat part of what Dr Endres said, talking about our country's future in the medium to the long term: '(Here we have) this...receding power of the state — its loss of authority and credibility, its inability to translate plans into action, and the growing disconnect between the ruling elites and those they govern... 'This is where South Africa's greatest opportunity for the future is to be found: in its innovative and resilient private sector and civil society, which are solving problems in the growing absence of the state, and doing so successfully. In years to come, South Africa may well become a case study of how private initiative succeeds where states fail.'
Among others, Dr Endres is therefore saying that already, standing out as a matter of strategic importance, our public administration and management are collapsing, gradually giving way to an 'innovative and resilient private sector and civil society, which are solving problems in the growing absence of the state'!
In political science, this is characterized as counter-revolution!
And counter-revolution is no innocent and pleasant game, but, in our case, a direct threat to our democratic state and the welfare and well-being of millions of our people.
What should SAAPAM and all of us do successfully to confront and reverse the reality that Dr Endres has pointed out - the receding power of the democratic state — its loss of authority and credibility, its inability to translate plans into action?
As I have said, to emphasise what you know, this negative observation about the democratic state is, in essence, a negative comment about the place and role of our public administration and management in our democratic polity.
It calls for the right response from our public administration and management themselves!
I would like to imagine most of us present and participating at this Conference, have read the 2007 seminal book by Naomi Klein entitled 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism'.
A reviewer of this book at the New York Observer characterized it as a "compelling study of the dark heart of capitalism".
I have cited this book, 'The Shock Doctrine...' because it amply and dramatically analyses and exposes what Dr Endres identifies as our country's destination.
Correctly, Naomi Klein explains the kind of outcome mentioned by Dr Endres as but an expression of the so-called Chicago School (of Economics) established by the now late Dr Milton Friedman.
She writes that central to the vision of the Chicago School are 'the policy trinity - the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending'.
She writes that the Chicago School teaches that: 'Just as ecosystems self-regulate, keeping themselves in balance, the market, left to its own devices, would create just the right number of products at precisely the right prices, produced by workers at just the right wages to buy those products - an Eden of plentiful employment, boundless creativity and zero inflation... '
The reality, however, is very different. She writes that: 'In every country where Chicago School policies have been applied over the past three decades, what has emerged is a powerful ruling alliance between a few very large corporations and a class of mostly wealthy politicians...
'Its main characteristics are huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt, an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and the disposable poor and an aggressive nationalism that justifies bottomless spending on security. For those inside the bubble of extreme wealth created by such an arrangement, there can be no more profitable way to organize a society.
But because of the obvious drawbacks for the vast majority of the population left outside the bubble, other features of the corporatist state tend to include aggressive surveillance (once again, with government and large corporations trading favours and contracts), mass incarceration, shrinking civil liberties and often, though not always, torture. '
Dr Endres has forecast that our country is drifting towards reconstitution as a Neo-liberal State. What we have just quoted from Naomi Klein, as a product of the implementation of the dogmas of the Chicago School over three decades, is exactly a description of a Neo-liberal State.
According to Naomi Klein, neo-liberalism is defined by 'the policy trinity - the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending'.
John Endres characterizes that same neo-liberalism for our country as where 'innovative and resilient private sector and civil society...are solving problems in the growing absence of the state, and doing so successfully...a case study of how private initiative succeeds where states fail. '
The phrase 'where states fail' means 'where public administration and management fail'.
What must be done to avoid that catastrophic eventuality?
I wish the 22nd National Conference of SAAPAM success and thank you very
much for your kind attention.
Thank you.
Issued by Thabo Mbeki Foundation, 25 September 2023
