By Michael McWilliams*
Dear Comrades,
This letter is probably a futile effort at saving your bacon, but in good conscience, one must try.
Historically, the ANC have not been very good at taking advice, or rather not good at taking good advice timeously.
Remember ESKOM’s warning to cabinet to quickly build more power stations?
Remember the warnings against water pollution, both Acid Mine Drainage as well as sewerage plant collapse?
Remember the many years of public outcry against Thabo Mbeki’s AIDS denial?
You chaps never did a thing about any of it, or about Mbeki’s alleged Minister of Health Manto the Klepto, until it was too late and over 300 000 South Africans died unnecessarily.
When you did actually bestir yourselves, you re-called poor Thabo because he suspended his Vice President for being deeply involved in corruption with a prominent Indian family, something that has sadly become a habit with him.
So, when you all finally got rid of President Thabo, it was for the worst of all reasons, his anti-corruption initiative.
You then elected Jacob Zuma as President. Again, against all advice from those both black and white, who simply wanted the best for South Africa.
The new President immediately began dismantling any and all state organs that could threaten to bring him to justice. Again, concerned South Africans loudly cautioned you about every destructive move he made.
There is not space to list the atrocities President Zuma visited upon the country which culminated in the Three-Finance-Ministers-in-a-Week fiasco that, in one overnight fell swoop, lopped R170Bn off the economy and reduced the Rand to Monopoly Money status.
Now, here we are in a new year with the probability of South Africa’s investment status being demoted to junk. This will be because of the many mistakes and intentional perversions that have been visited on the economy by yourselves and your President since he replaced Mr. Mbeki.
Well-meaning South Africans, who would like to live in a prosperous country are again warning you.
You collectively need to do some drastic things very quickly in order to stave off the ruin that is rapidly approaching.
This ruin is going to affect the man in the street, but it is also going to affect you cadres rather badly, so take notice even if you don’t do anything, because if you don’t, we are going to say, endlessly.
“We told you so, and as usual, you didn’t listen.”
When SA is proclaimed a junk investment risk, a few things are going to happen, all of them painful.
The government’s interest bill is going to skyrocket and paying wages to deployed cadres, (in other words you chaps), will become impossible unless more money can be found.
The needed money won’t be found from a growing economy because the junk status will halt and reverse all foreign investments in SA.
Your Communist friends in important cabinet posts have killed Industry and the Mines, the country’s two main pillars of financial strength. Your voters have killed the farmers and therefore Agriculture, the third pillar of strength, is collapsing and the redistribution of land to previously disadvantaged people has only had the effect of further destroying the agricultural yield of the land.
So, where is the money going to come from?
There are only two places.
The printing press and the IMF.
You will find that any IMF money will come with all sorts of strings attached. They will insist on less government corruption, they will insist on cutting the government wage bill and they will vet all large government projects to ensure that they contribute to the countries well-being and that they are free from corruption.
You will notice that all of these IMF strings impact directly on you and your ANC fellow travellers. Thing will become very uncomfortable for you, but also for the millions of Social Grant recipients, because this programme will be first in line for cuts when the IMF start calling the shots.
Because the effect of cutting Social Grants as well as government posts and salaries will mean the end of ANC support from these two sources, it will sooner rather than later mean the end of the ANC as the ruling party in SA.
This is why you lot will, as usual, take the more comfortable route and resort to the printing press to solve your problems.
This is of course a fool’s errand, but that has never stopped you in the past, and is very unlikely to stop you now.
Printing the money you need to continue with your bad habits has a predictable end.
First inflation, then hyper-inflation and then you lose your currency.
Look north for the proof of this.
How to avoid catastrophe
So, what can the ANC do to stave off ruin, both to their own party and to the country?
There are as many things that will improve the situation, as there were many things that caused the slide to ruin.
However, if a permanent turnaround is desired, a full basket of reforms is needed and needed now.
Privatize or sell non-performing para-statals.
Some para-statals are essential. ESKOM, the Post Office, Water Affairs, Health Service. They are all failing, or have in fact failed and must be privatized.
Others are non-essential. SAA and SABC for instance. These must be privatized or sold outright.
Eliminate Corruption
This is the hard one. Recall President Zuma and replace him with someone who has an axe to grind with the administration he has put in place. Mbeki could be re-called.
Read also:Â How world sees SA: Destructive Zuma busy hollowing out the Beloved Country
Re-instate an independent Prosecuting Service and pass a new law that doubles the minimum sentence of any state official caught stealing from the coffers or being involved with corrupt tendering.
Ban any and all state employees from any form of private business.
Promote foreign investment and local re-investment in the economy to eliminate unemployment
Give foreign and local companies a ten–year tax break for new investment. Any new investment that provides more than a thousand jobs should get a free Company Tax period of ten years. The government will still reap the rewards of PAYE from employees and VAT but will forego Company Tax.
Rein-in the Unions
Any violence accompanying strike action must be ruthlessly put down. Illegal strikes must be handled by mass firings and hiring new workers from the huge pool of unemployed.
Any intimidation of workers must be dealt with in a hard and strong manner.
Freeze Public sector salaries and wages
Everyone employed in civil service is grossly overpaid at present. From Zuma downwards, South African civil servants are among the highest paid in the world. When you couple this to their actual productivity, they are just plain unaffordable because many service must be paid for twice if citizens want to enjoy a modicum of decent service. The Police replaced by Security companies, Government hospitals replaced by private clinics, government schools replaced by private ones. Either privatize these services or make it more affordable to pay for both.
Invest in education meaningfully
You already spend a disproportionate amount of money on education. The problem is that the expenditure is misdirected toward over-paying lazy and incompetent teaching staff.
Useless teachers and head masters must be ruthlessly culled and School Inspectors with real powers re-instituted.
Money must be re-directed at teacher training and school facilities.
You have already destroyed the future of two generations of scholars by your incompetence and selfishness. This needs to change, now.
Read also:Â Herman Mashaba responds: ANC failed the people. Time for change.
The full menu, or don’t bother
If you do all of these things, you will be able to remain in power. Naturally your party will be unrecognizable and will resemble the opposition DA.
If you only do bits of the menu, the fall will perhaps take a little longer, but the backlash from your voters and cadres who will feel betrayed will be all the more vicious.
Please don’t say you have not been warned.
Please don’t say that you didn’t know it would be this bad.
You have been told what you are doing wrong, and you have been told how to fix it. Your fate is in your own hands.
Please don’t try to re-invent the wheel by proposing the usual asinine “African solutions to African problems” mindset. Have a look around you. Nothing works in Africa. There is nothing Africa can teach you about running a successful country.
The last warning: Place not thy faith in China. She is also in difficulties and a line of countries, headed by Brazil, are in the queue for a bailout from the East. Even Zimbabwe is in front of you in the line. China will not save you.
You need to do it yourself.
Yours very sincerely,
Michael McWilliams
Johannesburg
- Michael McWilliams, a member of the Biznews Community, has been married for 35 years and has three sons. Born in Johannesburg, schooled at Marist Brothers Inanda and St. Charles Pietermaritzburg he was a paratrooper in SADF and the captain of the SA Parachuting Team which won the Bronze Medal in the World Championships. Author of “The Battle for Cassinga” and the novel “Osama’s Angel”, his career has ranged from TV News cameraman to national marketing manager of Peugeot and running his own design consultancy. His hobbies are opera, hunting and classical music
