One-size-fits-all policies don’t fit SA

Idon’t know whether it was my column last week, but in the face of criticism the presidency issued a mildmannered but detailed list of steps it has taken to rid SA of corruption and strengthen its institutions.

It would be unfair not to recognise that President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried, in his own way, to staunch the corruption that besets our society and his party and government in particular. The results are not insignificant.

Since he was elected president in February 2018, read the presidency note, Ramaphosa had “taken several decisive steps to end state capture, fight corruption and rebuild damaged public institutions”.

“Boards and management in several captured state-owned enterprises like Eskom, Denel and Transnet have been replaced with competent, credible people [who have] recovered large sums of money irregularly spent. Sars has been turned around, new leadership at the Hawks has been appointed and the high-level panel on the State Security Agency was appointed to restore the integrity of our intelligence services.”

The Mpati commission of inquiry into impropriety at the Public Investment Corporation led to some renewal there. A new national director of public prosecutions was appointed. The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) Special Tribunal was appointed to expedite civil claims against corrupt individuals and the recovery of stolen funds. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Investigating Directorate was established to focus on prosecution of state capture and other significant corruption cases.

A Health Sector AntiCorruption Forum was launched as a multi-stakeholder body to identify, investigate and prosecute corruption in the health sector. The Zondo commission regulations were amended to enable sharing of information and resources with the NPA. In response to corruption in Covid-related procurement, a Fusion Centre was established and as a result of its work 39 people had appeared in 23 criminal cases by June. A total of R878m has been recovered by the Fusion

Centre and placed into the fiscus. This includes the recovery by the SA Revenue Service of R252m in taxes.

By August the SIU had referred cases worth R1.4bn to the Special Tribunal to have contracts set aside and recover lost funds, referred 148 individuals and entities to the NPA for possible criminal action, referred 127 government officials for disciplinary action and three political office bearers for executive action.

All good and true. But the point of my column wasn’t corruption. Unemployment here isn’t at 34.4% (without counting people who have given up trying) because of corruption or even incompetence. Successful economies like China and Italy thrive because they’re corrupt.

We’re at 34.4% and debt interest payments now of more than R1bn a day because the ANC and its government keep choosing poor policy.

I came across a good example the other day. The Africa Earth Observatory Network released a report on the dire state of alluvial mining, mainly in the Northern Cape, saying while about 2,000 small-scale diamond miners employed 25,000 people back in 2004, the corresponding numbers now are 220 and fewer than 6,000.

The reason? These often mom and pop operations suddenly had to provide the paperwork and social and labour plans that bigger mining houses could when the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act came into operation in 2004. It’s typical ANC. One size fits all. When it has to regulate the way wealth is created in this country it doesn’t have a clue.

The Daily Maverick quoted SA Diamond Producers Organisation deputy chair Lyndon de Meillon saying: “We are all privately owned companies, we’re not listed entities. To comply [with] BBBEE requirements and social and labour plans [is] very difficult. We are very good at creating jobs and mining these ultra-low-grade deposits.

“We feel social upliftment is the government’s responsibility but we are prepared to make a contribution. Just make things a lot simpler for us. Most of us are small and family businesses.”

But for this government if your job isn’t covered by central bargaining councils it isn’t a job at all. And amid the fuss about corruption, the ANC/ Ramaphosa Actual Jobs Destruction Machine slides quietly by, only occasionally coming off the rails. This week the Pretoria high court found against the state’s insistence that mining companies be required to maintain a BEE shareholding of a minimum 26% no matter how many times their black shareholders sell out.

The mineral resources minister, ANC party chair Gwede Mantashe, who has had his fair share of policy setbacks (being forced to raise the limits on self-generated electricity is one) is poised to be Ramaphosa’s “running mate” when the party elects its leadership in December next year. That could make him deputy president.

THE TRADE, INDUSTRY & COMPETITION MINISTER IS DESTROYING JOBS THROUGH HIS LOCALISATION POLICIES

But Ramaphosa is very much party to the policy lunacy. Both men want the state at the centre of the economy. It makes your eyes water.

SAA starts flying again today, nearly two years after being grounded, with ticket and Voyager liabilities of close to R6bn — and it will create new debt the second its first flight takes off.

As it is, as we read, the trade, industry & competition minister is destroying jobs through his localisation policies, throttling imports that keep thousands of jobs alive to protect a few selected (and happy to help) industrial heavies that will take all the protection they can get — and not create a single job unless it is in every possible respect unavoidable.