Oh goody! More talking!

Were Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency to have a brand slogan, those of an ungenerous bent would suggest it be “words not deeds”. They would say the defining insignia of that brand would be Ramaphosa, as personable and well-meaning as he is, booting the can so far down the road that it would take a cavalcade of blue lights hours to locate it.

As a president with natural authority, capable of rousing sentiment, he has rare skill. But as a politician whose homework will be judged by what he has actually achieved on the report card, he is in danger of failing badly.

This week, Ramaphosa played to his strengths, announcing a “national dialogue”, which he said would be a “people-led, society-wide process to reflect on the state of our country in order for us to reimagine our future”.

But don’t be fooled into thinking this is an urgent chat. 

While Ramaphosa said there will be a first “national convention” on August 15, this will only lay the platform for a second “national convention” next year to “reinforce our shared values and adopt a common vision and programme of action for our country”.

In other words, we shouldn’t really be expecting a “programme of action” until next year. So what is everyone supposed to do until then? Play Google maps bingo with Joburg’s potholes? 

Until then, it’s a fabulously convenient excuse for doing zip.

There will be an “esteemed persons” panel too, consisting of no less than 32 people. Because anyone with even a perfunctory knowledge of governance knows that if you want a solution, the trick is to get more people into the room.

Quixotically, this “eminent persons group” contains such oddball choices as Miss South Africa Mia le Roux, tennis champion Kgothatso Montjane, mountaineer Sibusiso Vilane and a convocation of religious leaders. True, it includes rocket scientist Siyabulela Xuza, judge Edwin Cameron and businesswoman Gloria Serobe, but still. 

Oh, and it comes with all the paraphernalia of a massive tax splurge: there will be a “steering committee”, a “secretariat” and an “interministerial committee”. If the ANC’s front company, Chancellor House, had any sense, it would be taking pre-emptive stakes in hotels and conference venues, rather like it did in Hitachi, before it was hired to build Medupi.

But I’m sure it’ll all be worth it, as it will finally tell us the secret of what has been wrong with South Africa all along – something we surely couldn’t have figured out from the thousands of pages of government strategy reports, auditor-general findings, World Bank assessments, credit ratings agency verdicts, and annual reports of our top companies. 

But, then, perhaps this “national convention” will be different in that it will tell Ramaphosa what he actually wants to hear, rather than inconvenient truths. Starting with the soothing myth that talking, rather than implementing, is all you need to turn around a country.

Groundhog Day

“It’s a waste of time and money,” political analyst Prince Mashele tells Currency. “Last year, we had an election, and parties sold manifestos to the nation, who voted on that. Then they constituted the [coalition] and signed a statement of intent – so all they need to do is implement what they promised they would implement.”

Worse: it has all been done before. 

Mashele says back in 2012, there was a consensus that the National Development Plan was the blueprint for fixing the country, and yet this has only gathered dust for more than a decade. Why not implement that?

“It’s a diversionary tactic. I’m surprised people haven’t figured out how Ramaphosa operates: he constitutes commissions and conferences, and nothing follows. He is not a man of action,” he says.

It’s a scathing assessment, but then Ramaphosa’s stasis has burnt much of the goodwill and political capital his presidency began with. 

Instead, at this point, it’s hard to disagree with opposition parties like the EFF, which said he is trying to create “a false impression of work being done”, pointing out that there have been any number of “presidential advisory councils, commissions and envoys”. 

Jacob Zuma’s MK Party similarly described it as a “tone-deaf charade engineered by a regime clinging to power”. 

Now, that’s the sort of thing you’d expect Zuma to say, given his antagonism to Ramaphosa. But he isn’t wrong that it is tone deaf to call for a “dialogue” about lowering an unemployment rate of 32.5% that will only, fingers crossed, get around to drawing up an action plan next year. 

It reinforces the view that if Ramaphosa’s party, the ANC, hadn’t already got the message that people ditched it in last year’s election because their material circumstances had worsened, it probably never will.

If politicians are ultimately to be judged on what they do and not what they say, this “dialogue” is not going to do the ANC any favours. 

This week, Ramaphosa said that “in many ways having dialogues is part of our DNA as a nation”. 

I’m not so sure about that – but it’s certainly in his DNA as a leader. And it’s a gambit which, in the absence of anything concrete, has worn vanishingly thin.

_{Top image: Cyril Ramaphosa (Gallo Images/Brenton Geach); Currency.}