Former spy boss and ambassador to Japan Thulani Dlomo has warned the toxic mix of soaring youth unemployment and poor governance could trigger domestic unrest.
“If you have a situation of 60.2% of young people who are unemployed and a high rate of poverty, that is a recipe for an uprising. That is a recipe for disaster,” he said.
Dlomo, who was head of the State Security Agency, was speaking at a seminar on the country's political and economic climate organised by the Xubera Institute of Research and Development in Durban on Thursday.
Responding to a question from political analyst and Xubera founder Xolani Dube about another civil uprising, Dlomo said: “Is there a possibility for the next unrest? Absolutely, unless we come up with the framework and programmes that will keep young people out of drugs, in schools and supporting entrepreneurship.”
Despite experts and leaders having sounded the alarm about the potential consequences of these challenges, the country was ignoring the signs and struggling to address its problems, he said.
“We have an internal crisis which is a recipe for a catastrophe.”
The former counterintelligence chief, who has close links to former president Jacob Zuma, is no stranger to being in the spotlight because of civil unrest.
He was previously fingered as one of 12 initial masterminds behind the deadly July 2021 unrest. However, that was set aside when Dlomo presented himself at the Durban Central police station, where it emerged there was neither formal complaints nor evidence linking him to the turmoil which claimed over 350 lives and cost an estimated R20bn in damages.
He completed his master’s degree which focused on conflict in Mozambique last year.
He said his research focus stemmed from worries South Africa was not taking seriously the possibility of experiencing similar instability to that seen in Mozambique.
Dlomo warned that conditions in the country were ripe for similar turmoil.
“When you have poor governance and your institutions are collapsing, that’s the parallel findings we presented in Mozambique, now your security cluster certainly will be in paralysis,” he said.
“Where there is marginalisation of young people and high levels of corruption (then) there are strong possibilities that your security is compromised.”
The issue of failing government institutions and their threat to citizens was reiterated by Leo Saunders, a director in a Durban-based forensic law firm and lead practitioner in the high-profile corruption and fraud case against former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and accomplices and other cases involving high-ranking government officials.
He pointed out the root cause of the collapse of state organs, particularly in dealing with corruption, was the system of appointing politicians without technical expertise to ministerial positions who in turn appoint similarly unqualified people to lead anti-corruption structures.
“Because these organs of state are headed by political appointees, it’s more than likely that they will take political considerations [into account].
“Why is the NPA inefficient when dealing with corruption and why are the Hawks, who are primarily tasked with dealing with organised crime, not effective?
“We have people in high positions that abuse every mechanism of the legal system; they hijack the organisational structures of every organ of state, put persons in positions that will work in accordance with political motivations rather than the upholding of the rule of law.”
He referred to the eThekwini municipality case involving Gumede, claiming there were several judgments that were made favouring the state on the asset forfeiture side using the “absence of evidence” he presented, yet the criminal side of it was stalling and witnesses are being interfered with “mafia style”.
“I’m not talking about what I’ve heard. Anybody who challenges me I can produce every piece of evidence of what I’m saying.”
Controversial billionaire businessman Rob Hersov poured cold water on the idea of the country’s economic prospects getting better and thus creating more job opportunities for the youth.
He said the ANC was to blame for the problems facing the country over the past decade despite having done a “pretty good job” between 1994 and 2008 before the Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa tenures.
“From Zuma to Ramaphosa they have deindustrialised and destroyed our country and we are on the brink of financial collapse. We have all got poorer over the last 10 years as a result of the ANC.”
He said the political environment had pushed away investment in the country and left it poorer, making it harder to create jobs.
“There are 35 South African-born dollarbillionaires living overseas and five living in South Africa. I can name hundreds of people worth between $100m and $700m and none of them are investing in South Africa.”
He added that he was not optimistic that the country would achieve the projected 1.8% economic growth.
“We’re not even going to get there; if you strip away the tariff impact, falling out of Agoa and all the other elements that we know are going to happen, we will be at best on 1% and we were at 0.6% last year.”
That, coupled with the population growth that is higher than economic growth at between 1.6% and 2%, means the country is getting poorer.
Dlomo also warned the business sector that there was a “serious international cybersecurity threat” they must be proactive in dealing with.
“That’s a serious threat which I believe we must have options on how best we can secure our businesses from cyberattacks and how best can we neutralise the threat of domestic unrest.”
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