09 Apr 2013 | Tony Leon | Original Publication: BDlive
Perhaps Trevor Manuel will
hand over the problem of cadre deployment to his successor, writes Tony Leon
THERE’s the apocryphal tale of the departing president handing three
envelopes to his successor. "When the going gets rough," he advises
the new head of state, "open an envelope".
As an early crisis hits the new president, he opens the first envelope.
In the note inside it, his predecessor has written: "Blame the global
financial crisis." This buys some time for the new man, until a new
problem confronts him. So he opens the second envelope. The note in it from the
former president advises: "Blame me."
This also works for a good while, until yet another crunch point
threatens his administration. With rising panic he reaches into his desk for
the third envelope prepared for him by his predecessor. The note inside it
says: "Prepare three envelopes."
In his interview last month with the Financial Times, President Jacob
Zuma, metaphorically, opened the first and second envelopes when he blamed both
the eurozone crisis and the legacy of apartheid for the flat-lining of the
South African economy and our coruscating failure to create economic growth and
employment.
I very much doubt whether Zuma, the arch-survivor, is preparing three
envelopes for an early succession. But last week, Planning Minister Trevor
Manuel actually threw away the second envelope entirely with his
headline-grabbing speech to a government leadership summit. He now famously
said: "Nineteen years into democracy, our government has run out of
excuses. We cannot continue to blame apartheid for our failings as a
state."
Such brutal candour is both unusual and refreshing, leading to
suggestions that Manuel is preparing to leave the government at a not too
distant date. But as someone who created both an enclave of excellence in his
many years at the Treasury and who has bequeathed the country an impressive
road map into a sustainable and inclusive future in the form of the National
Development Plan (admission: I have read only parts of it), he knows whereof he
speaks.
But for all the attention Manuel’s speech achieved, it is actually some
of the detail in his groundbreaking speech that points to the Sisyphean task of
building a "developmental state" without the bricks and mortar, in
the form of an engaged and professional public service, to do so.
Having just emerged from three years "in the belly of the
beast" as a chief director and ambassador in the public service, I readily
identified with many of Manuel’s observations about a "risk-averse public
service that thrives on passing the buck". I recount some of the lurid
tales of missed opportunities and hair-raising bureaucratic obstacles placed in
the path of the public servants who do actually arrive at work on time and
display a conscientious application to their tasks in my new book, The
Accidental Ambassador.
One of the stories I don’t recount in it is worth retelling here, in the
light of Manuel’s speech. Last year, when we were planning to use the Freedom
Day celebrations in Argentina to showcase a gifted emerging South African
artist to art-loving Argentinians, I obtained the immediate buy-in of the
director-general of arts and culture for the project. He promptly sent us the
details of the programme and we selected an artist from the approved list
provided by his department. However, the problems and obstacles emerged the
moment the matter left the desk of the director-general and went down into the
lower reaches of his department. In short, and it is a very long and sad tale,
an excellent young artist, John Vusi Mfupi, was eventually flown from
Johannesburg to Buenos Aires but, due to a combination of incompetence and
lethargy, he arrived without his excellent portfolio of works to display to the
audience of more than 200 high-end locals we had gathered together for our
Freedom Day celebration. The artworks had been erroneously sent to Amsterdam, not
Argentina and arrived four days after the event.
The net result of this botch-up is that I now have a large Mfupi collage
on display in my lounge in Cape Town, as I both appreciate his art and felt so
bad about his missed opportunity that I purchased his work for my own account.
South Africa, of course, has more pressing issues than showcasing its
artistic talent. But the same malady in the middle and lower reaches of arts
and culture is evident in health, education and the police, to name just three
front-line services where the state has the essential role in providing public
goods.
Manuel attributes the problem to high policy turnover, high turnover of
staff and a critical shortage of technical skills.
He’s right in his diagnosis, except on one essential point. He says,
"SA has not suffered … from having incorrect policies". Actually, one
of the roots of the problem he so fearlessly dissects is just such a policy.
It’s called "cadre deployment". Perhaps in handing over to a
successor in due course, he will place that in an envelope.
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