On his Facebook page, Prof Busani Ngcaweni describes himself as an aspiring storyteller. Let me disabuse him of that self deprecative diminution. He is actually an ardent and accomplished storyteller.
You only need to read his insightful metaphors in Inanda Proverbs. The Senior Makoti character of the public service remains a classic. He is grounded in his knowledge of politics, culture, economy, administration and governance. He played a critical role in the development of youth policy for South Africa — not the one seen in practice today, but one we should have deployed for emancipating ourselves. Therefore, with that preamble, his departure is not the end of his productive endeavour to public service, it is a continuation.
Ngcaweni and I, albeit from separate rooms in the public service, have been outliers. We became regular columnists in the Business Report over two decades and counting. He wrote provocatively about the public service and its indiscretions, often to the discomfort of the establishment he served. In this regard he was not only focused on reforms but aimed at turning the skin of the beast inside out. His titles were always explicit in regard to what they intended. You need just scroll Ngcaweni’s Muckrack page for the evidence.
In the article titled Biko, we are not at ease, Ngcaweni writes: “Remember the ANC which was long banned when you died; yes, that one which once led the liberation movement, self-styled as the broad church! Today you’ll frown if you saw the extent of its internal divisions. Even its own documents tell tales of a ruling party increasingly at odds with the people. They talk of the ‘social distance between the leadership and the masses.” This he wrote while serving as a public servant in the office of the president of the country and the party.
Ngcaweni brought a new form of evidence to the fore that says attack — as a measure of uncensored facts of the state of the nation — in the service is the best form of defence.
He feared to be passive and detested injustice. He remained steadfast and bold. As the ANC approached a century, he invited me to write a chapter in the title The future we chose: Emerging Perspectives on the Centenary of the ANC. The book is a record of progress and lack thereof. As a public servant, he took it upon himself to marshal a number of us to write about the 100 years of the fight for liberation and the 19 years of freedom. Ngcaweni has not ended there — about to hit the shelves is another book to which he forced my pen again, titled Thirty Years of Democracy in South Africa.
The contribution Ngcaweni has made as a civil servant and mobilising others to participate is certainly beyond measure in the context of a civil service that self-censors and a political elite that is eager to punish and act clothed under the guise of discipline. Ngcaweni brought a new form of evidence to the fore that says attack — as a measure of uncensored facts of the state of the nation — in the service is the best form of defence. My columns served a similar purpose of informing the public about the facts of the nation.
We also published an opinion piece in the Daily Maverick in 2021 to disabuse ourselves of the economics of debt as a problem that presupposes that expenditure cuts are the way to go. Our title read In the belly of extremes: What does business bring to the table of the poor? That’s the main ingredient of a social compact. It presupposes that the social compact that never was, but which has been commuted to a national dialogue, should address the misallocated argument of debt as a problem instead of driving expenditure-led growth as a solution to South Africa’s growth problem. Penned amid Covid-19, the aspects of the article addressed and affirmed Colin Coleman’s arguments that South Africa has a growth problem and not a debt problem. For these arguments Coleman caught the ire of Thabi Leoka and Isaah Mhlanga, who would opine in a rejoinder by Mhlanga in Business Day (Fashionable road will lead to ruin in the near future). Leoka also responded in the Sunday Times.
Leoka argued that Coleman had accompanied “Team South Africa” in supporting the commitment to the macroeconomic framework, but now he is reneging on that, as though Coleman could not be entitled to argue differently.
These issues are part and parcel of our much-awaited national dialogue. They remain unanswered while poverty and distress gnaw at the soul of the nation.
In 2013, I experienced Ngcaweni at close range but much closer in both December 2015 and June 2016. Suffice to say the latter two encounters are a book for another day for this public servant who had the sixth sense for smelling danger and acting with speed and diligence.
By 2014 the practice of statistics reached a century in South Africa given that the Statistics Act of 1914, one of the very first acts of parliament that followed the 1910 Act of the Union, would mark a century. The defence force had commemorated the practice, so did the Reserve Bank at age 90. When I tried to commemorate a century of statistics in the territory called South Africa, StatsSA revolted. The current statistician-general and I decided to precipitate the discourse on the for and against reasons and not miss some good trouble. To this end we invited Ngcaweni to participate in this discourse to stimulate debate on the question of memory and history in a nation. That was followed by Dr Vusi Gumede and of course the chair of the Statistics Council.
While I concluded I will not go forward with the commemoration, the discourse had highlighted the unaddressed questions — a national dialogue at work and a fishbone that would choke the nation in the future. That bone sits on the windpipe today and at StatsSA we saw it long coming.
The second instance was when Morten Jerven led with his book titled Poor Numbers. In 2012 I had successfully stopped Jerven from presenting his poor scholarship at the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Two years later I invited Ngcaweni to Gaborone, Botswana, where he would be a discussant of Jerven’s work at the 9th African Symposium for Statistical Development, a body that I chaired. Ngcaweni skinned Jerven alive and activated African conscience in their public service endeavour.
Ngcaweni ceaselessly invited me to be part of the panel in the Masterclasses held for the public service. His tenure at the National School of Government changed the course of history and confronted the scourge of ineptitude in the service. He possessed the leadership and the intellectual fortitude moulded over years of fierce critique of the establishment he loved and served with astute courage and never to be intimidated.
Ngcaweni was too brave to kowtow to the wicked and betray the wisdom contained in the Inanda Proverbs book. He excellently deployed his innate knowledge and respect for himself as an African to make the world his oyster and bring practice from across the world in pursuit of building the best public service in South Africa. While his work is far from over and South Africa would have benefited from longer tenure he was granted, Ngcaweni’s instincts have pointed him to a similar calling but from another prayer room.
By joining the University of Johannesburg, he has simply metamorphosed through a self-liquidating catalytic role and continues to pursue the definition of the relevant situation. His dramaturgy is of an informed and socially beneficial type. He will thrive in the semi-academic environment where he will build skills for the public service.
• Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa
For opinion and analysis consideration, email opinions@timeslive.co.za
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