We got chaff we needed wheat

Zuma used his speech to campaign for Mangaung

THE opening of parliament and the state of the nation address are important landmarks in South Africa's calendar. The ceremony, the ritual, the authority of traditions new and old; all combine to convey a sense of wonder as well as reassurance. It is the stability and continuity of the state writ large, a symbol to citizens that the institutions in which they believe are both alive and enduring.

But there is also something artificial about them. The problems we face and the successes we achieve all continue according to their own timetables. The government has extensive programmes, the nation faces many trials, and our people have boundless potential - it is difficult to outline all of this in one evening as part of a consolidated vision.

I appreciate these difficulties and I appreciate President Jacob Zuma's large governance agenda. But what our country needed was an honest assessment and a plan of action to address it. He chose instead to launch his leadership campaign for the ANC's conference in Mangaung at the end of the year.

I agree with the president's diagnosis that SA's problems relate to poverty and unemployment. He said the economy had created jobs last year and that the unemployment rate had fallen to 23.9%. He neglected to consider that the official statistics, as most economists and labour analysts will tell you, mask a much more troubling picture. A picture that takes into account those who have given up looking for employment and those new job seekers unable to find productive work. In that picture, more than 107000 jobs were lost in a year the president said would be "the year of the job".

Even the president's own figures point to a crisis. And he is right to point to structural problems in our economy, the kind that we have left over from the 1970s, as partly to blame. But I strongly disagree with his interpretation of how we should deal with those problems.

In the 1970s, we had an economy structured to support the dual demands of a warped and failing political project and the ever-growing pressures of restricted trade access.

The economy of the 1970s adapted in various ways but only with state intervention to adjust the market imbalances that resulted from political policies. That intervention in turn caused large distortions and many of the structural problems that we live with today.

For these, President Zuma believes we should encourage more state intervention.

The range of these proposed interventions varies. Indeed, the president acknowledged the vision of the National Planning Commission and that of the New Growth Path. But they fundamentally contradict each other in parts, and are driven by conflicting factions in his cabinet.

These wandering policy strands speak to the heart of the problem. It's one of the reasons we do not have people investing as much as they could and should in an economy with bountiful strategic assets in the world's fastest-growing region.

So, I disagree with the president's analysis, but I also differ with him on some facts.

For example, he thanked the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) for supporting his campaign to have teachers in school during school time. And yet, Sadtu was engaged last month in an illegal strike in the Eastern Cape.

Instead of defending the right of our children to quality, stable education, the president defended his right to a second elective mandate at the ANC conference with union support.

The governing party has, of course, been responsible for overseeing an historic increase in education levels since 1994. But what we have not seen is the next stage of our development: rigorously ensuring that the work done in classrooms delivers the outcomes we need.

President Zuma's error in education is to expect that he can extract value from an investment in resources, without putting in place the mechanisms by which those resources are managed, like teacher qualification reviews and performance contracts for principals.

Long after the ceremonial guards have packed away their uniforms, long after the red carpet has been rolled up, something must remain. Something to infuse parliament and its deliberations with energy for its year ahead. And something to shape the country for the challenges that lie ahead. The president's vision for our country should lead the way.

Instead, that vision has been replaced this year by the gentle whisper of a distant party political conference.