As South Africa battles degeneration: Our fragile start is coming apart at the seams

The edited version was published in the SundayTimes of 02 July 2023

South Africa as a state has been experiencing a steady decline as a reliable and sustainable service delivery system. Whilst its policies have defined 'the what' is to be done aspects of government, its politics have ravaged its implementation capability. The impact of state capability has become more additive as each service delivery dysfunction compounds the damage of the next with less time for the state to recover in between. 

The reality, or rather threat, of state disintegration in terms of the frequency and severity of extreme dysfunction, such as that experienced in public infrastructure collapse, has put society on tenter hooks. Whilst each crisis or dysfunction is distinct, the disintegration patterns have striking similarities of poor planning and a divided national resolve. The collapse of SOEs and most municipalities and their declining economic influence have impacted the state. Dysfunction has now occupied centre stage.

 

Three fundamental dysfunctions in the state sure to accelerate disintegration are worrisome. Their convergence could only trigger fragilities South Africa's current capabilities cannot quickly reverse. Firstly, the shrinking state revenues as a function of an under-employed economy. It is known that the state has a role in providing public goods and correcting market failure. To do this, the state needs revenue. It takes money to guarantee minimum energy, water, public transportation, data, and human livelihood security. The entire institutional edifice of governing with a bureaucracy as the core cost driver depends on a strong functioning state with its revenue generation capacity. This is in decline and is one of the tipped dominoes in the disintegration. 

 

Secondly, South Africa is on a sliding slope as a strong and functioning state capable of operating above or independently of its unstable politics of graft, crass, greed, and corruption. The fear of a strong state as a function of delaying state-driven restitution of what apartheid has bequeathed to a non-racial state has made the narrative of limiting the reach of government a policy choice by a dishonest political and economic establishment elite. To perform a developmental state role, South Africa needs a strong state. 

 

A strong state translates into an appropriately designed, recruited, trained, and ideationally equipped bureaucracy. A bureaucracy that will have a presence in the efficient governing of the state. A state in control of the supply side dynamics of its teacher for the social construction of the nation, security cluster for the management of national security issues, health professionals for the building of a healthy society, and its armed forces to manage the threat of counterinsurgency through a national interest defined training and doctrine. 

Rising crime levels and national security management system breaches indicate a weakened state and growing fragilities. The chaos in securing public infrastructure, growing control of the political economy by criminal syndicates, and brazen corruption in the public sector all point to a weak, if not fragile, state.

 

Thirdly, the Constitutional literacy of the dominant governing and opposition complex elites. Whilst many are sworn to an oath of office to respect, protect, defend, and promote the Constitution, many are on paths other than the executive and legislative authorities to travel. The growing vibrancy of civil society movements has been the towering and vocal protector of the Constitution, notwithstanding the seldom questionable intents of litigants given the comprehensive objectives of transformative constitutionalism. 

 

As observed in the load-shedding saga, the extreme consequences of government dysfunction, when left to persist, easily wreak havoc in society. Cholera and other waterborne disease episodes might be the tip of the iceberg. Should an audit of additional public infrastructure destruction costs related to load-shedding-induced outages be consolidated, the extent and depth of the pending crises will be a sure indicator of a fragile state. 

At all levels, the government should know that society's capability to adapt to the growing dysfunction is unequal. In South Africa, this inequality has race, gender, age, ethnicity, and spatial confinement as vectors. CUT!!!