PALI LEHOHLA | Let’s curse darkness to remodel freedom in our lifetime

The UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (UN-CEPA) is chaired by former SA cabinet minister Dr Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, who, among other portfolios, was minister of public service and administration. She was among luminaries at last week’s launch by former president Kgalema Motlanthe of the Economic Modelling Academy (EMA).

Who would have guessed that SA would continue to face an existential crisis 28 years into democracy? UN-CEPA was established in 2000 to address challenges raised by UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It raised 11 principles anchored in three areas — competence, sound policymaking and collaboration. These resonated with the important message former president Nelson Mandela captured in his letter from prison to Adelaide Tambo. He wrote: “Significant progress is always possible if we ourselves plan every detail and allow interventions of fate only on our own terms. Preparing a master plan and applying it are two different things.”

Mandela, after leaving prison, worried about the state’s capacity to deliver. In October 1998, in a speech of acceptance of the Census 96 results, he reiterated the cleavages the results displayed, particularly in education. He spoke at length on this, lamenting that black children survive under conditions that make learning and absorption of complex concepts highly improbable, if not impossible, and emphasised that these required an urgent solution.

By 2001 SA had extended access to schooling through its policy of free and compulsory basic education. This access increased to a point where few children aged seven to 14 were left behind. However, Mandela also discussed quality of education. In this regard he focused on the material conditions at home and school, saying some children returned home to parents who had never seen the inside of a school. They returned to crowded houses with no electricity and scant love and care, serious deficits in ushering in a new generation.

These principles are now even more relevant as we face existential threats of our own making — Covid-19 and floods. 

These challenges required detailed planning and intervention. Such advice was unsurprising coming from Mandela because by the end of World War 2, young lion Anton Lembede, the president of the ANC Youth League, with Albertina Sisulu, Walter Sisulu, Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Ellen Kuzwayo and others, pledged “Freedom in our Lifetime”. Lembede would not live to see it, dying at the age of 33, but older struggle stalwarts did. It could not have been achieved if the plan was not carried out in detail and at all times, most importantly during their time as political prisoners on Robben Island after the Rivonia trial.

So when the 11 UN-CEPA principles were compiled, anchored on the three areas described, South African hearts should have welled with joy from the heritage of planning in detail, yet it is not to be. These principles are now even more relevant as we face existential threats of our own making — Covid-19 and floods. 

We should be competent at performing our functions, with institutions having sufficient expertise, resources and tools to deal adequately with mandates under their authority. Sound policymaking that achieves results must be coherent and founded on true or well-established grounds, in accordance with fact, reason and good sense. Finally, on collaboration to address problems of common interest, it is expected that private and public institutions work together towards the same end. This is the central challenge we face. 

As one who was involved with national numbers, Mandela’s message about planning in detail has remained in my mind. Matthew 7:6 challenges us to respond to his assertion: “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” Did Lembede and his comrades cast the pearls of freedom before swines? Do we have to prove him wrong? 

To get freedom in our lifetime back on track we need to realise significant progress when planning in detail and do as the Robben Island prisoners did — keep hope alive even in the darkest hour.

To curse darkness, Dr Asghar Adelzadeh and I launched the EMA, the first of its type in SA. Adalzadeh is not new to this country and our association is a long one. He had this to say about Stats SA: “Were it not for the quantity of data available and its associated regularity and quality ... the 10 heterodox economic models that the Applied Development Research Solutions built would have not been possible.” The data the state facilitated for South Africans over 28 years created the pearls upon which the EMA can play its part in building the sorely needed, but badly eroded, capacity of the state.

Fraser-Moleketi’s reference to the complex interconnectedness of the UN-CEPA principles for administration was apt and can be disentangled, understood and constituted by capability. Motlanthe, in launching the EMA, said he was inspired by the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping reflecting on the role of building capacity: “Our national governance system and capacity complement each other and form an organic whole. An effective governance system will lead to greater governance capacity, while greater governance capacity can make the governance system more effective. The national government system of a country epitomises not only its many systems, but also how well it can enforce them.” From this we understand that organs of state are crucial to give effect to these models and implement them.

On behalf of Adelzadeh and many who will benefit from EMA in the generations to come, we thank our speakers Motlanthe; Fraser-Moleketi; Nolitha Fakude, chairperson of Anglo American SA; TP Nchocho of the Industrial Development Corporation; Mduduzi Mbada from Gauteng Economic Development; Prof Ahmed Bawa of Universities SA; James Donovan of ADEC Innovations, Prof Eddy Maloka of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism; Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, deputy chair of the National Planning Commission; our host at 22 On Sloane Kizito Okechukwu; and our MC Nzinga Qunta. Finally, we thank our audience. EMA will enrol its first attendees in September. Visit the EMA at website www.Academyema.com

Dr Pali Lehohla is co-director at EMA, professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), research associate at Oxford and former statistician-general of SA.