Beware of the deleterious impact of the sangoma law of compliance. The sangoma always wins. Almost five years since my departure from running the national numbers, I have had a chance to use them and have discovered how useful it is to have such an arsenal at one’s disposal. I have been reflecting on my accidental journey to accidentally landing that crucial national task. For lack of a better description, call it a game of chance wrapped in sangoma mysticism.
In 1978, at the National University of Lesotho, my radio/cassette player was stolen from my unlocked room — my mistake. However, I was livid and alcohol intake fuelled my desire for evidence. When my roommate and I discussed a suspect, it resulted in a recollection of indicators from the previous year. My mind settled on him and an hour later a showdown ensued. The next morning I reported the theft to a fellow student who was concerned about the previous night’s commotion and wanted to know what the matter was. In his forties, he was more than twice the age of the 19-year-olds we were at varsity. He had done a certificate in statistics and was back for a second bite at a degree, joining us in second year. When he heard of my loss he arranged a trip for me to the Lesotho military base. There, he intimated to me, was a person known for solving mysteries. The mystery man’s instructions were that we needed to act in haste lest the bones fail to detect evidence. The ingredients and instructions were tight. This is always the case in sangoma arrangements. He told me not to greet anyone until I got back to my room at the university. Fortunately, it was evening time when I left Maseru alone for the 40km trip and I wasn’t worried about breaking the law. But by the time I entered the residence's hall it was full of friends and the no-greet rule was broken.
Time is a great healer and I forgot about the incident, only to have another mishap — failing to understand the intersection of economics and law. As a treasurer of the Rovers Football Club I also acted as a scout for players, who we got from first-division clubs in SA. One was Zulu Royals goalkeeper Bheki Mfeka, who would regularly fly from Durban to play for Rovers. I would pick him up from the airport in Bloemfontein. It was on one of these occasions that I drove into Bloemfontein and spotted a hi-fi which would replace my radio/cassette player. Little did I know the shop was in foreclosure and a lay-buy was the worst option I could have gone for. No sooner had I completed my two-instalment lay-buy and got ready to collect my item than lawyers descended on the shop. There was no trace of my hi-fi, yet the shopkeeper insisted it was in a store in another building. At the time, my elder brother, a lawyer, was a registrar at the Lesotho high court. He understood this well and relayed the possible solution with legal clarity that bore no sympathy for a younger brother whose savings had been depleted in a raw deal.
The role of the state is not one of arbiter. It is one of economic intervener, given the massive challenges of our times. SA should stop taking alcohol and in its stupor impute a mysterious solution to its problems.
One day I returned to my village and told my father about the incident. He had heard about the theft. I did not know these incidents were steering his thoughts. When I woke up the next morning my mother introduced me to a person who “spoke in tongues” and would resolve this series of misfortunes. The standard procedure is that you talk to no one once you start performing rituals, but his treatment offered an error-free option — I would perform the rituals first thing in the morning when it was relatively quiet. Students would be sleeping off the previous night's party and there was no risk of having to greet anyone. The rituals involved washing with a boiled egg, then taking it to the eastern gate. There it had to be thrust on a rock to break it, after which you walked away without looking back. The first challenge was that the university did not have an eastern gate. It had an exit through the fence for those wanting home-brew in the adjoining village. The main gate was in the west. I explained this to the one who speaks in tongues. He replied that any gate would do, but I must remember to talk to no one on the way to or from the gate.
First thing on a Sunday morning I readied myself to carry out the ritual by the stroke of sunrise. Everything was promising and I was confident about my performance. I got to the gate and did as the sangoma instructed. Little did I realise that an avid athlete was entering campus from an early run or, perhaps, visiting his sangoma. He caught up with me and started throwing out jokes, greetings and questions, one of which was straight to the point — where was I going given I had turned abruptly from the gate? I burst out laughing, but never told the story. The radios would never materialise. I had broken the sacred sangoma rule.
My becoming a national bean counter was a serious accident. I was escaping political persecution in Lesotho and settled in Bophuthatswana. I went home to inform my father that I was fleeing the country in five days. Guess what? The next morning the man was there with provisions for my trip. Rituals had to be performed by sunrise after crossing the border. Sunrise was in Derby and I performed the rituals. My friend who drove me across the border watched and we giggled about it. But it is difficult not to obey well-meaning instructions from your father, who was also your primary school teacher. Seventeen years later I was the statistician-general of SA. Not because of the rituals, but because of being disciplined to listen carefully to the wise words of a father. He had a motto: God needs help, so do your bit too. SA certainly needs help and can succeed if it helps itself because God needs help to help the country.
Over the past three days this need for help was plain for everyone to see, especially young people who came in their numbers. We hosted a successful conference on Rethinking Economics For Africa (Refa). Hosted by Johannesburg’s Wits university and billed the Refa Festival 2022, the mood was festive, even though sombre topics on five streams of thought had to be tackled. These were inequality (hidden) and Africa, globalisation and international economic issues, and the economics of climate change: gender, human rights and economic justice. The discussions revolved mainly around Keynesian economics, which is capitalist in theory. However, John Maynard Keynes was bold in showing that capitalism in the depression of post-World War II Europe and the world was never going to create jobs. He heightened the role of the state to deal with demand attributes of an economy. Then US president Franklin D Roosevelt and the Marshall Plan were beneficiaries of his economic intervention.
SA's challenges are those of one who has lost two radios in succession. The first because of an unlocked door, the second by not understanding the dispossessing force of the intersection of law and economics. The IMF and World Bank sangoma has said, SA, here is the medicine. Once taken, talk to no one. If you speak, the austerity will lose its potency to resolve economic life and employment. Refa was about taking SA to Derby, where while rituals are performed, the country should embrace discipline and do its bit for God, who needs help too. The role of the state is not one of arbiter. It is one of economic intervener, given the massive challenges of our times. SA should stop taking alcohol and in its stupor impute a mysterious solution to its problems. Privatisation is not the answer, no matter how much you obey the sangoma’s rules.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits university and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of SA.
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