Cyril’s moment to prove he’s not as ‘dof’ as he seems: Paddi Clay

Key topics:

• Ramaphosa faces pressure to abandon race-based BEE for inclusive new bills.

• DA and IRR propose policies aiming to repair apartheid damage without using race.

• President urged to act decisively and define his legacy before his term ends.

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By Paddi Clay*

Cyril Ramaphosa has a great opportunity to stop being ‘dof’ and create a positive legacy for himself as well as a brighter future for all in South Africa. But will he take it?

At school we used to call each other dof when others didn’t know obvious things that everyone else knew, not by dint of study, but from some kind of osmosis process with surrounding reality.

Dof is the Afrikaans equivalent of dim, slow to understand, not the brightest bulb in the room. It’s far softer than dom or stupid because it implies it is a temporary state that can be rectified after others point it out to you.

I bring up this old schoolyard jibe because recently the President of South Africa has been presenting as terrifyingly dof.

I mean, who goes walking in their suburb and is not curious about a mansion worthy of a full-blown oligarch, and doesn’t want to know who lives in it, and how they obtained their wealth?

Being a kind and generous soul (my own assessment, which remains uncorroborated), I am loath to condemn our President as stupid or evilly complicit or tragically ignorant of what is going on until I’ve seen his response to the great opportunity that is in front of him and his party.  This is in the form of two bills heading for Parliament: one from the Democratic Alliance and one from the Institute of Race Relations.  Both ignore race in trying to repair the damage done by apartheid and the past three decades of the ANC’s dominance in government.

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I do wonder if Cyril Ramaphosa has even read Jeff Wicks’s The Shadow State, now that he knows who lives in that mansion, knows he is distantly related to him, and is under investigation for corruption? He seems so disconnected to what’s going on in his own country.

Does he know that eight out of ten South Africans now believe South Africa is on the wrong track, following the uptick in mood after the GNU formation? This is not information from a news organisation’s X poll, this is according to the latest Ipsos What Worries the World Study.

Is he prompted into some self-reflection when he is told that hundreds of children are suffering from malnutrition and thousands go to bed hungry under his watch, after so many years of his party’s dedication to Broad-based (really?) Black Economic Empowerment?

In his ‘Making Sense’ podcast, political analyst and commentator Frans Cronje recently described BEE as the ANC’s foundational policy for dealing with the legacy of apartheid.

But it’s proving to be very rocky and unfit for purpose.

The CEO of the National Employers’ Association of South Africa, Gerhard Papenfus, said in a media statement this week that ‘every South African knows that B-BBEE has been abused by a very small group of politically connected cadres and tenderpreneurs for ridiculous self-enrichment, to the absolute detriment of the Act’s intended beneficiaries.’

It is hard to believe Ramaphosa does not see the evidence piling up that BEE, since shortly after he and many of his activist and unionist pals became munificently empowered through the gift of shares, board seats and top company posts from white- owned businesses, has been pushing us further downhill economically as a country and depriving millions of the descendants of ‘apartheid’s victims’ the chance to get  employed or rise out of poverty.

He and his party, nevertheless, are still trying to improve the prospect of achieving BEE’s purpose. Their most recent initiative involves throwing other people’s money at it  through the GNU’s race-based Transformation Fund which will depend heavily on private funding.

Apparently Ramaphosa did not click on the YouTube channel of the next biggest party in his Government of National Unity when it announced it was proposing an economic inclusion bill to replace race-based empowerment criteria. When asked for comment after the announcement he said he hadn’t yet seen it. It’s likely he was buying himself some time to think.

He has now been filled in on the Democratic Alliance’s Economic Inclusion for All Bill and he says he will consider it.

He will also have the newly launched Value for Money Bill from the IRR to consider.  It too doesn’t rely on race to achieve its goals.

These two policy proposals for new legislation give him the chance to do something more impactful than BEE has so far achieved, if its purpose was indeed to improve the lives of the majority of South Africans.

Ramaphosa can choose to do nothing, a default position he often favours, or he could seize the opportunity being offered by these policies to end his run as president on a high note.

He could for instance, opt for a tactic not entirely unknown in politics. He could order his officials to do some cherry-picking from either or both bills and repackage that selection along with something the ANC was thinking of doing anyway.

He could sell it as the party’s caring response to the desperation of the poor, or as a tweak or update, without even acknowledging that BEE is not working and delivering what was intended.

This face-saving ploy could have appeal for an ANC that is on the ropes and flailing around for an upturn before elections. Getting off the grey list is not going to cut it.

But this step would require President Ramaphosa to strong-arm his party into giving up its deep attachment to a policy that has benefited many of them. It would take courage to push through, particularly as it is not likely to appeal to the faction supporting Paul Mashatile.

 The ANC does, however, have the chutzpah to present such a cobbled-together proposal without blinking.

Alternatively, Ramaphosa could not apply himself at all.  He simply leaves ANC MPs and any of the party’s small-fry allies or the MK and EFF rabble to kill the bills with a decisive majority against.

Or he could let the parliamentary process run its course, accept even a surprise victory for either bill, then do nothing when it comes to activating the necessary legislative changes.

He could even take the giant step of throwing off his cloak of ‘dofness’ and going for gold. To create a legacy as the president who helped rescue South Africa, he could initiate cooperative discussions with either of the groups proposing and backing these bills.

He could insert a couple of compromises or set conditions, to win his party over to accepting one or both bills and pulling back on its insistence that policies based on race are the only means of improving the lives of the majority.

(Wasn’t Ramaphosa once praised by supporters, such as the Irish, as a great negotiator?)   

Suppose that after ‘considering’ the policies proposed by these bills that have so much potential to repair and restore the country, post-apartheid and post ANC dominance, Ramaphosa directs cabinet, the caucus, and his coterie of influencers in media to reject them outright and refuse to relinquish race as a means of achieving transformation.  In that case, I would find Ramaphosa and the ANC to be nothing short of malevolent.  

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For vengefully insisting on race-based inequality as a means of lifting people up, both he and his party would justly deserve ignominy.

IRR CEO John Endres said in a speech last month that the defenders of BEE argue that it is a ‘moral imperative: that without it, inequality will persist, and democracy itself will be at risk.’  But policies must be judged, he said, on what they deliver.

So, must presidents. It is time for Cyril Ramaphosa to step up and make policies that will lift everyone up. He may not have another chance.  

*Paddi Clay has spent over 45 years in journalism, as a reporter and consultant, manager, editor and trainer in radio, print and online. She was a correspondent for foreign radio networks during the 80s and 90s, has an MA in Digital Journalism Leadership and received the Vodacom National Columnist award in 2007. She spent much of the later part of her career mentoring journalists. Now free to voice her opinions on politics and be an activist,she reads fact as well as fiction, indulges the family dogs, and channels her inner Nigella in the kitchen of her leafy suburban home acquired through hard work not privilege. She values curiosity, humour, and freedom of speech, opinion and choice but has little tolerance for the grossly ignorant encountered on WA groups or X and resents spending time trying to sort out her Johannesburg council billing every month.

This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission