ANC NGC – nice singing, shame about the policies

The singing was energetic and boisterous, as is the norm at these meetings. About 4000 delegates were packed into Gallagher Estate conference centre, in Midrand, Johannesburg, and the ANC’s midterm conference, convened to review the party’s performance since its last major conference, in December 2012, was well under way.At the time of the last conference, when many of the same delegates adopted policies intended to turn our country around, South Africa was much more prosperous than it is today.

South Africa’s economy posted moderate growth of 2.5% in 2012, down from 3.5% in 2011, according to Stats SA.

Today, nearly three years later, the country, and the people’s mood, are in pretty bad shape.

Last week underlined these problems perfectly. In a badly battered economy, 30000 workers at coal mines across the country downed their shovels, demanding higher wages.

Then came the statistics. First, the World Bank said on Monday that it had adjusted its economic growth forecast for South Africa for this year to 1.5%, the same figure as the Reserve Bank’s. For next year, growth will be down to 1.7% from 2%, and for 2017 to 2% from 2.4%.

Here is the human tragedy that lies in these numbers: World Bank lead economist for South Africa Catriona Purfield said that, at these rates, at least 14% of South Africans would remain in extreme poverty and unemployment would increase.

A day later the International Monetary Fund reduced its GDP outlook for South Africa for this year to 1.4% from 2%, and the forecast for next year was revised to 1.3% from 2.1%.

Then news came on Tuesday that the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s business confidence index for September was at its lowest since July 1993.

That is horrendous – there was virtually a war going on in parts of South Africa in 1993. Violence was so bad in KwaZulu-Natal that large chunks of the province were no-go zones. Parts of the Witwatersrand, such as Sebokeng and Thokoza, were at war. There was a mini-coup in Bophuthatswana.

If business confidence is as low today as it was back then it means that we have a crisis on our hands.

Did the 4000 delegates this weekend understand that the poorest of the poor, the people who put them in power, are suffering as the economy tanks?

Did they know that at least 100000 jobs have been lost this year? What will they do about it?

The ANC document on economic transformation starts off with a key and astute observation. It says: “At the heart of radical economic transformation is an effective state that is decisive in its pursuit of structural change.”

When President Jacob Zuma – the person charged with leading this “effective state” – stood up to speak at the conference on Friday I got a sinking feeling.

The ANC has many shortcomings but at policy level it has largely been progressive and on the money.

Yet one wonders if it has the leaders to implement the policies and to tweak the ones that are not working to meet the challenges of the times.

Zuma’s speech was a cut-and-paste of old platitudes.

For a country whose economy is rushing downward fast, he offered nothing new, nothing special, nothing that showed any sense of purpose or urgency.

Worse, the previous day he had told a gathering of the party’s Progressive Business Forum: “Investing in the ANC is a very wise decision. If you don’t, your business is in danger.”

This is a man whose party is currently embroiled in the Hitachi bribery scandal. One has to wonder how he can say what he says without even thinking about what message he is putting across.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe dropped the second bombshell: ANC membership has fallen from 1.2-million in 2012 to 769870 today. The party of Oliver Tambo is not just suffering losses electorally, but also in paid-up membership. How can it be saved?

So, as the days came and went at the conference it became clear to me that no matter what the delegates say, no matter how long the resolutions, the truth is that the ANC’s national general council must revisit the key mistake it made at the 2007 and 2012 conferences.

The delegates then chose the wrong leadership. They chose leaders who have no appreciation of the economic, social, political funk that the country was in.

The chose leaders who do not care a whit for business sentiment or for the fact that in Etwatwa children are necklacing children.

So today the delegates will go home, the discussion documents will be pulped, new resolutions will be filed … but the ANC’s trajectory will continue downwards. The Jacob Zuma presidency will not save the ANC.

Justice Malala is a political analyst. This article first appeared in The Times