If I Stood Before South Africa

I recently wondered to myself whether I should get into politics. Personally, I am neither particularly sociable nor particularly fond of politics, fundraisers and campaigning. I prefer being out of the limelight when I can help it, and I am not overly fond of social media or a constant connection to other human beings. Take it as a sign of how poor I consider our pool of political leadership to be, then, that I would put serious thought towards the idea of presenting myself as an alternative to the madmen and passionless moderates that seem to have taken over at the highest levels.

Here I give you the speech I would give, were I to stand up before the nation of my birth and tell them what I stand for as the leader of a party. I write this unapologetically, with a clean conscience and a sense of release in sharing my views. Hate them or love them as you will, but do me the favour of thinking before doing either, please. My speech:

Welcome

Given recent events, let us get one thing out of the way. I'm white. If that matters to you, feel free to leave, and don't bother voting for me. If you would vote for me because I'm white, please don't: you are part of the problem in this country and part of why tensions are still building. If you wouldn't vote for me, because I am white, good riddance: you are why our country is being stolen blind by an ANC that has traded Mandela's selflessness for an inflated pay check and an unfair share of all of our nation's work.

Why am I here? That's a good question – why leave behind a job and a degree that would have been good enough to get me through life here or would have helped me leave to make a life somewhere else? A few reasons. Despite all its faults, I love this country. Nature has blessed us many-fold; with riches of the earth, with incredible ecology, and with soil and water enough to feed ourselves and our neighbours as well. Our country has a history of excellence in many fields, from medicine to engineering to statecraft. We were blessed with a peaceful transition, which few nations in Africa were fortunate enough to have. We have wonderful people, and a rich mix of cultures. Sadly, what we have the most of now is hate, incompetence and failure.

I want our country to grow, to have a future. Perhaps the best way to get this across, is to paraphrase a song from my mother tongue:

This land is my land, this land is your land

From old Limpopo to the Cape's sandy beaches

And the Drakensburg, the bleak Karoo

This land belongs to you and me

I want to live here, I want to die here

So that the youth of tomorrow will inherit a future

We may not doubt. We may not hesitate

This land belongs to you and me

This land belongs to you and me

What that songs says, is that our country belongs to us all. We are all part of it, and it part of us. Write that off as a sweet-sounding cliché if you want to: if you give up on that idea, it will surely give up on you in return. For myself, I want to see us come together and thrive. I want to think of the state of our nation and smile. I want to think of our economy and be content. That is why I would forgo the life I was working for to make an almost inevitably futile attempt to change us for the better.

Let us discuss what I would actually do to change things. Talk is all well and good, but unlike those who consider loudness and media impact to be key, I am about the change we can see, the change that puts food on plates, roofs over heads and knowledge in heads.

My very first priority for this country is to work on the economy. Sentiment can be clean, pure and beautiful – but I know of no man who can live off sentiment, ideals or rhetoric. One of the first things I would do if elected, is stand before this nation and the world to announce that our economy is a priority, that I intend to work 8-5 every day for my time in office to push down unemployment, increase growth and build this nation up to become a centre of trade and economic power in the global community.

Pretty words, now the how: this would not be popular, but I would push to get rid of BEE (including the BBBEE re-branding) entirely. BEE is broken, and was doomed from the start: what BEE does, is enforce a more proportional outcome to the struggle for employment. Sounds good, right? The reality is, BEE provides almost no benefit for people below management level posts. BEE does not give you an equal opportunity – BEE takes a few lucky individuals and places them in management posts, since management levels are the ones not yet representative.

Now, taking things away is no solution on its own. The counterpart, firstly, is to bring in increased transparency in hiring – if you are qualified for the job, you should be told exactly why you were not selected – and harsh penalties for any entity that allows race to influence appointments (the investigation of such cases should be left to the SAHRC, who should be supported by government funding but be fully independent operationally).

Secondly, historical disadvantages and inequalities need to be addressed. There was certainly no magic reshuffle of reality in 1994 – some people have more than others. First step: ensure that nobody is denied his or her rights, by intent or by lack of service provision. This includes education up to the matric level. Second step: provide further assistance to anyone – race is irrelevant – who still does not have an equal opportunity. University grants, loans, bursary schemes and, eventually, fee tertiary education are the primary goal for this step – free tertiary education, however, would require a stronger economy, or higher taxes, since South Africa right now just does not have the money for such an ambitious project.

The nature of our capitalist society is, inevitably, one of inequality. Working hard, having a better foundation to start from, having a good idea, even being lucky: any of these things can result in someone making more money than his peers. It promotes inequality, even as it fosters competition, innovation and progress. Changing that is not an option. We have plenty of examples of failed communism (Soviet Union, China) and failed extreme socialism (Venezuela) to refer to, and many successful capitalist societies (USA, Germany, the new partially capitalist China) to learn from. Socialism has shown itself to improve societies, but we must avoid thinking that nationalising all the things and making us all “equal” would help us.

Just ask yourself: who would care about sport if every match was a declared a draw before it starts?

The key is not to try to force equality in all fields, instead, it is to continually improve the position of those who have less. For every person whose life is improved by government action, the nation is improved. The opposite is true too – every failure of the government to help a person in need is a detriment to us all.

Having discussed how to address the inequality in the workplace, the next important matter is to consider how to improve the economy as a whole. I will briefly address a few key strategies, intended to restart growth and accelerate job creation. These strategies include supporting business founding and growth, attracting foreign and domestic investment, improving fiscal policy, reviewing the labour laws and cultivating a spirit and tradition of excellence, including in government.

Supporting businesses is an important part of my plan to move South Africa forward. Large companies have access to the economies of scale needed to manufacture products or provide services in an affordable fashion, while the growth of start-up businesses and the small and medium business sectors ensures a good competitive environment and a variety that will help stabilise and protect the economy.

Programmes, plans and schemes for government support of 'SMEs', Small and Medium Enterprises, has long been a buzzword, but sadly only moderate success has been achieved in the field. That has to change – and anyone who wants to work in the government as I would run it would have to get used to forgoing government-sponsored end-of-year parties and first class flights until economic growth in South Africa exceeds the average growth of the first world, at a minimum.

One key problem with and shortcoming of the South African economy is out embarrassing continued reliance on exporting our mineral wealth raw. Is it not madness that it is cheaper to buy South African ore, ship it overseas, and process it there than to set up metal smelters here? America, Germany and China do not make their money from the minerals produced there – and we would be wise to learn from that. To encourage manufacturing to be set up here, we need to restructure Eskom, to secure power supply certainty, and encourage private efforts to ease the load, like installing solar panels and being energy efficient. I am not talking about saying “This is what you should do”. I am talking about “Be energy efficient, and you'll get a discount or rebate in return”.

Attracting foreign investment is important. It's all too easy for a politician to rant about local ownership, not wanting “foreign control” and about some global conspiracy to cheat us out of our fair share – all for a few quick political points. If we do not actively encourage investment – foreign or other – we will never grow at the speed that we need to. Investment in a country is important for the same reason why companies allow the public to buy shares in them: buying shares gives the company a large amount of capital (an investment) with which they can build facilities, hire staff, produce goods and provide services. The things the company does with the investment allow it to make a larger amount of money, and a larger profit. That is how investment fuels growth. Something does not come from nothing in the business world – investment is the seed that grows into new jobs, new products and services, and a better tomorrow for all of us.

Every time someone seriously suggests nationalising “key sectors”, investors have to stop and think whether the threat is credible. The more credible it is, the more likely they are to withdraw their support – they have no desire to have their hard-won assets seized. What does this have to do with our credit rating? Whenever we do something stupid as a country, particularly something that threatens our economy or the right to own property, investors from within and without either withdraw their money from SA, or avoid adding more to their investment here. Less investment, fewer seeds to grow new jobs. It really is that simple.

The solution? A well-qualified Finance Minister, with experience in management and the financial sector, to start with. That Finance Minister then works closely with the rest of the cabinet to find out what is needed, and what is not, and set up a budget that redirects any unnecessary spending towards more important goals like education and economic stimulus.

In our country, one of the main targets for budget reallocations should be rampant government spending. Like any true servant of the people, the president of South Africa should be willing to put the nation ahead of him- or herself. There is no need for a personal jet aircraft – there are more than sufficient airlines connecting us to the rest of the world, and the cost of buying and maintaining a personal aircraft would be better spent on RDP housing, school lunches and the like. Government should never be a “cushy job”. High government posts are paid well to attract appropriately qualified people – but the decadence the South African government has sunk into is an abomination.

The ailing parastatals/state-owned enterprises are another weight trying to drag our economy under. How many bailouts will SAA and Eskom need? Why are South African tax payers footing the bill? I say either executive posts in SOEs have to include consequences for poor management, or the ailing enterprises have to be privatised to force them to be competitive. We cannot pull this country back from the brink of failure if our infrastructure stays an embarrassment to us all.

Labour laws are wonderful things for protecting the rights of workers, who are in a very unequal power relationship with their employers as individuals, particularly with the massive unemployment in South Africa. We have allowed labour laws to slowly choke our economy, however: strikes are growing ever more common, ever more violent, and they have reached the point of being self-destructive. Companies can only afford to pay their workers a certain salary. The higher that salary is pushed, the less the company grows. The less the company grows, the less jobs are created. Eventually, jobs are lost or entire companies close down.

Strikes are a major part of how employees can exert power over their employers, in an attempt to equalise the relationship between the company that pays, and the employees that work. Strikes are necessary, yes, but we have grown the idea of a peaceful strike over a minor difference into a great beast that disrupts businesses for days or weeks, burns property, blocks roads and supports claims that companies cannot afford to agree to – that the South African economy cannot afford. Workers in various and diverse industries lose weeks of pay in an effort to force through a raise in their wage – even though that raise will only make up for the lost money after months or years. The lost time, however costs the company thousands or millions of rand – money that could have been spent on hiring more people.

While the unemployment rate stays so abysmally high – about one job-seeker in every four has no job at any one time – we cannot afford to lose whole percentage points of our growth to violent or illegal strikes. Legal strikes are protected by law and shall remain so, but a firm and consistent response to illegal or violent strikes are needed. I suggest that the best course is not just legal action, new legislation or increased police response: it is education, the availability of information, and greater transparency in the way money made by companies is spent. Show dissatisfied workers why their demands can or cannot be met. That policy will not stop all violent or illegal strikes, but pro-active action will reduce the problem over time.

The last and certainly vital part of the plan to improve our economy is to cultivate a community of excellence. As long as South Africa is content with mediocrity, we will always be mediocre. This has to start in government. If there is a problem, a situation which needs to be taken care of, it should be handled with decisive professionalism, and handled quickly. There can be no snap decisions, vague policies or half-hearted attempts. From the presidency and the cabinet down, government cannot afford to be anything but efficient, because it is to the government that the country looks for guidance.

That sense of excellence needs to be nurtured in schools and universities as well. The way forward is through exemplary leadership, the development of new technology and the good management of the resources of this country. The government should be encouraging and supporting the development of the talents, skills and experience to do so in the youth of South Africa, if we are to have hope for the future.

The economy is the first priority. After that, we get to service delivery. Service delivery has a long and mostly tragic history in our young democracy. Corruption and incompetence have resulted in the loss of billions of Rands of government funding. My stance on that is simple: either reform the Hawks, or bring back the Scorpions, and ensure that they maintain their independence. Corruption is not to be tolerated, and members of any party I head would have no excuse for attempting to avoid legal proceedings if they are implicated in corruption. Unlike the incumbent party, my party would not be a shelter for the corruptible.

The tender system we have is a good structure, but has all too often been undermined by questionable practices by the very officials who are supposed to oversee the process. In any and every case where the government goes through the tender process, the results and reasoning supporting said results are to be made available to the community or communities affected. This is to cut down on the opportunities for corruption, and give the communities a basis for feedback on the way that the tender is carried out. The government is by the people, for the people: unless it pertains to national security in a vital way, there should be no aspect of the conduct of government that would be detrimental for the public to know.

I will take but a moment here to address an issue that has seemingly enthralled some of our media and much of our country recently: racist remarks made on social media. My opinion is that an individual racist or racist remark should never concern the government, any more than a case of shoplifting, auto theft or littering. All these are transgressions against the laws of our country, and as such should be prosecuted by the appropriate authorities. The most that the government should be involved in the specific cases is that the government funds the SAHRC. Racism is not allowed or tolerated in this country, irrespective of colour, creed or background – it goes against the very nature of the constitution.

On a related note, I think it is time that we move away from the racially discriminatory laws we have accumulated since 1994 – more racially discriminatory laws than even the Apartheid government had. It is time that we focus not on what colour is in what situation – lumping people into categories by skin colour is how this country went wrong the first time. We should have laws to protect the poor from exploitation, laws to protect the equality of men and women, laws to regulate businesses to ensure that the citizens of South Africa are not taken advantage of. Let us build a society where the institutionalisation of any racially discriminatory practices is not tolerated, the rich extend a helping hand to the poor and all can rely on equal treatment before the law.

As to the situation with crime in our country, I have one thing to say: I will not be caring about how many crimes are committed. I will not be counting rapes and murders and deciding whether they are too many, or few enough to not worry about. To me, the exact numbers will mean nothing. Instead, my question to myself and the police will be “How much less crime do we have this year?” And I would not be content unless the answer was that crime was going down across the board. Fraud and murder. Rape and hijacking. Theft and assault. It all has to go – the question is not how much we have, but how fast we can rid this country of crime.

I could spend a lot of time talking about every last detail of the process that South Africa needs to go through to become competitive, wealthy and stable. Rather than do that here and now, I ask you to send me your questions. I ask you to think for yourself whether the things I have said make sense. If they do, then no matter how painful that truth may be, I want you to support me in this.

I will not be dancing; I will not be singing. For too long, we South Africans have been misled by song and dance and empty promises. If there is a time for song and dance for me, it will be when our unemployment rate halves and halves again. It will be when I can say that there are no households left on the waiting list for houses. It will be when I can say with confidence that no learners have to spend their school days hungry. It will be when I can say our economy is growing at a rate befitting a world-class nation that is developing into its prime. It will be when I can say we lost no funds to corruption for a fiscal year.

When all that is true, South Africa, I will dance with you. I will sing with you, sing a song of a land we share. A land where we live, a land where we die. A land where we work together for the betterment of us all. A land where we build a bright future for our children. A land where the seeds of hope can grow. We will sing together, and we will sing with joy.

May we have a blessed future in this, our country. May our diversity become our strength and unity secure our stability, as the motto on our coat of arms has called for since 2000.