On Thursday, SA’s social partners – sections of organised labour, business, the government and community groups – will meet in Midrand in the first of three presidential summits to tackle unemployment, poverty and inequality.
This is President Cyril Ramaphosa’s first test of whether he can deal with the ruinous legacy of the past nine years, during which corruption, unemployment, inequality and poverty grew exponentially.
The summit will focus on jobs, while the next one – due later this month – will focus on his ambitious plan to attract $100bn in foreign direct investment to SA over the next five years.
Of the two, the jobs summit is the trickiest in which to achieve measurable success, and where expectations of concrete outcomes have to be tempered.
A week ago, Cosatu, the union federation that is aligned to the governing ANC, complained that the jobs summit might turn out to be a damp squib because the government has been sending junior delegations.
That’s true, but it’s not the only problem. Even if the top teams were sent they are really not the sharpest tools in the shed thanks to the legacy of the past nine years. The turnover of directors-general has been too high to allow for continuity and institutional memory.
But this problem also applies to the other constituencies, especially labour and business.
When Zwelinzima Vavi and Irvin Jim were sacked from Cosatu, they took with them decades-long experience in negotiation.
Now, of course, because their SA Federation of Trade Unions [Saftu] is not part of Nedlac – the statutory body charged with organising Ramaphosa’s jobs summit – they are sitting on the margins, occasionally throwing stones into the tent.
Saftu is not alone. Business is fragmented too. Black business, represented by the Black Business Council (including what remains of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce), remains outside the business apex body, Business Unity SA (Busa), which has a seat at Nedlac.
Although the Black Business Council’s new leadership under Sandile Zungu has expressed a desire for unity, it has much tidying up to do internally before seriously considering returning to Busa. It remains to be seen whether Lauraine Lotter, one of the business constituency’s seasoned negotiators, will stay on beyond the conclusion of the summit. Also, it is unclear how much the government or Ramaphosa has done to canvass views and support of these “outsiders” (Saftu, Black Business Council and so on) ahead of the summit.
Nedlac itself has not escaped the damage of the past few years. It has been largely marginalised. Its achievements have been few and far between in this period. The most notable being the national minimum wage, which Ramaphosa personally shepherded through.
The latest batch of labour relations amendments that are before the National Council of Provinces, including the right to strike, are a source of ill-feeling between business and labour, which has polluted the atmosphere ahead the summit.
While it is understandable why the jobs summit should be held under the auspices of Nedlac, this has hobbled its capacity to deliver a credible product, given that it is also not immune from turf wars between government departments. By externalising the investment drive – through appointing special non-government envoys to help him – Ramaphosa has insulated this project from interdepartmental wrangling.
Still, this does not mean resentful ministers and state agencies will not attempt to scuttle it.
There will undoubtedly be an upbeat communiqué at the close of the summit, concealing all the cracks among the partners. This is enough for Ramaphosa to build consensus with the “outsiders” and then be able to table it at the investment summit as progress.
However, the work programme ahead of this week’s summit inspires even less confidence about solid outcomes. It is unnecessarily unwieldy.
A statement issued by the preparatory committee shows a laundry list of issues to be discussed by work streams including economic sector-specific interventions; small and medium-sized enterprise support; education and skills; inclusive growth, transformation and inequality; public and social programmes; the labour market; and anticorruption.
This is way too much; it almost encompasses the work of the government in normal times. It lacks the sense of urgency demanded by an economy that has contracted into a recession and is bleeding jobs en masse across all sectors.
It should not be lost to anyone that the tanking of the economy, though exacerbated by the confidence crisis among emerging markets, is taking place months after Ramaphosa’s well-received ascension to power and despite the considerable progress he has made in tackling the damage caused by his predecessor.
What Ramaphosa should aim at, instead, is a much crisper emergency compact with the social partners and then build consensus around it with the “outsiders”. He should demand an immediate moratorium on all planned retrenchments, forced or voluntary, from both the private and public sectors, while rolling out his economic recovery plan.
This will communicate a clear message that he appreciates these are extraordinary times that require an extraordinary response from a commanderin-chief. The country needs to know there is an adult in the room during this crisis. A nebulous declaration will be another squandered opportunity.
John Dludlu is a former Sowetan editor...