Kunjalo Inspirations | Dumisani Tembe

 

 

RAMAPHOSA - THE AGE OF THE UNREASONABLE LEADER

Dear President Cyril Ramaphosa,

From Dumisani  Tembe

 

I pray that this note finds you in good health both spiritually and physically. The leadership task bestowed upon you at this moment demands that you be balanced in all four aspects of your being: spiritually; emotionally; mentally and physically.

 

Please indulge me as I try to share a few notes with yourself and contribute to the development of this beloved Africa country.

 

This era is probably the most difficult time to be a leader of any society, particularly South Africa.  It is an era where leadership is subjected to substantive scrutiny due, among others, to the entrenchment of constitutionalism principles, and more importantly, the increase in the woke citizenry, and easy of dissemination of information. South Africans are more conscious of their rights, are very assertive, and keenly express themselves demanding the realisation of their rights.

 

Thus, as you sit at the apex of South Africa’s leadership collective, you are facing due scrutiny at all times. This is more pronounced as you preside over a hyper-politicised society across the racial, gender and income divides.

 

You are the most under pressure president since the dawn of liberal democracy back in 1994. This is not because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is because of socio-economic problems that are cumulative and recurring. These are centred on high levels of poverty, hunger, unemployment, joblessness, low housing, poor provision of water and sanitation, and landlessness.

 

The hope for “a better life for all” highlighted back in 1994 upon the deprived masses has been receding since then. Successive elections and change of ANC presidents have periodically rekindled this hope. Yet, every time it is made, the masses experience increased poverty, hunger, joblessness, and thus - despair.

President Ramaphosa, you are therefore the heir to this accumulative real despair by the black majority and African women and children in particular.

 

You are also the heir to increasingly fragile black middle-class frustrations that has reached the economic ceiling. These black middle-class are also fearful to lose the little that they may have accumulated since the dawn of democracy because the government you have inherited has shot up administrative prices beyond their affordability. The white middle-class too is taking strain – the earning potential of South Africans is being eroded.

 

It is therefore important that the immense pressure on you is located on a proper context: the pressure is material; organisational; institutional; and personal. Whilst it is crucial to unpack these in detail, I am well aware that in your leadership responsibilities, time is limited.

But let me unpack it a bit:

The pressure on you is literally based on the dire material condition that are worsening over time particularly for black people and fraction  of white people. The pressure is organisational because the governing African National Congress (ANC) is substantively failing to “create a better life for all” – well, at least for the majority amongst the majority.  It is institutional at the level of government, and the presidency in particular that also fails to curb the tide of socio-economic deprivation of the masses. Ultimately, the pressure is personal upon yourself because you are the prime leader of the governing ANC, the government as a whole, and the presidency in particular.

The pressure on you is both personal and positional. It is personal because in your campaign to become ANC president, you made grand promises that rekindled the promises of a prosperous South Africa. Therefore, the massive expectations and despair by the masses upon yourself are to be traced back to the promises you made during your ANC presidential electioneering. As  Indicated earlier, South Africans have a heightened sense of right awareness and assertiveness.

But the pressure is also positional. It comes with the position of state president that you hold. Any other person in the same position, would most likely suffer the same pressure. However, the heightened pressure on you personally, is because you hold the authority to make constitutional, legal, and binding decisions. It is in both these instances, personal and positional, that covid-19 has exposed challenges in both instances. That is, in terms of government institutional performance, and your own individual leadership.

Chief, please allow me to highlight some challenges that the government you lead has stumbled on as it addresses this pandemic:

The first challenge was Cabinet’s open mistrust of the poverty-stricken masses. By unleashing security forces upon the poor and vulnerable black majority, you expressly indicated mistrusted that the masses are incapable of behaving accordingly in the fight against the pandemic, hence the army had to be unleashed upon them.

This was rather unfortunate because democracies usually sustain themselves through voluntary submission by the citizenry to the instructions of its democratic government. In somehow a crude way, this was rather a subtle declaration of a state of emergency upon a population that actually lives on a survival mode. Unfortunately, you led a government in entrenching mistrust upon a very same black constituency that has constantly returned the party you lead back to power since ’94.

Mr. President, you may want to listen to a few new Maskandi songs and poems being sang and recited on the cabinet’s use of brutal force to enforce the level five lockdown regime. You will get a real sense of how the grassroots felt about the use of security forces to enforce a cabinet decision.

Then there was this parallel challenge of your inspired response - the “one-shoe-fits-all” approach. This is the regime that advocated self-isolation, and the washing of hands as preventative measures. I believe that you and the collective leadership have now learnt that the health solutions of the elite and affluent, are not necessary the solution of the poor, homeless, of those lacking in water and sanitation, and generally the jobless and the unemployed. This meant little for the masses that have no shelter; no running water; nor money to buy sanitisers. Preaching self-isolation to a family of five that shares one room, is rather unfortunate.

 

As the Covid-19 intensifies, the pressures on the schooling and health infrastructure and systems, crystalises one of your predecessors, Thabo Mbeki’s thesis that South Africa is a country of two nations: one white and affluent; and another black and poor.  The main lesson here is that the poor and vulnerable need particular interventions that are relevant to its material condition of lack. For some time now, the ANC government that you led has projected itself as being an “interventionist government” without such visible interventions. Social grants do not really qualify as a mark of an interventionist government.

 

Contrary to some public postulations by some in their comfortable isolation – Covid-19 has not “levelled” the class character of this society. Rather, it has further crystalised South Africa’s status as a nation of inequalities that still run across race and class. Unfortunately, the communists are not helping you in this reflection. In this regard, it is not that the pandemic has an equalizing effect, rather, the response to the pandemic must have an equalizing effect in society.

 

Right now, the children of the rich are at school, whilst black children are playing soccer in the dusty streets of our villages, informal settlements and townships. Time lost will never be recovered.

Winston Churchill once remarked: “don’t let a good crisis go to waste”. This Mr. President is not a “good crisis” as people are dying. However, this is an opportune moment to rethink two interrelated factors: Governance and Leadership.

 

Another Briton, Charles Handy, a highly experienced organisational development expert, argues that a progressive future will largely depend on what he calls the “unreasonable man”. Hence, the book is titled: “The Age of the Unreasonable Man”.  He writes that those who do things the conventional, and normal way, achieve normal results. They do not make extraordinary achievements.

 

There are moments in history that one, or in this case, leadership has to dump the existing formulae of leading and running organisations and institutions. Some have called this the “business unusual” of doing things. This is that moment.

 

So, Mr. President, how do we “make good” of this crisis; and the “business unusual” way of doing things. Perhaps, for your convenience, we call it the “New Dawn”. 

 

I suggest the following:

 

•         Restructure the government cabinet cluster system: Briefly, this should entail the following: mainstreaming health provision and services across all government delivery of services. It is clear that moving forward, health matters are very central to government delivery of public goods and services. The centrality of health in society is no longer limited to the confines of the Department of Health. It is now a cross-functional issue. Health is now a fundamental base for government functions managed by among others, the following departments: Social Development; Agriculture; Human Settlement; Basic and Higher Education; Public Works; Water and sanitation, and Environmental Affairs; Arts, Sports, and Culture; Communications; Tourism; and many others. These state functions need to centralise in their work issues of hygiene and contribute to disease prevention. The Health Department itself would focus on matters of prevention; treatment and cure. This entails the prioritization of building and strengthening of the immune system amongst citizens so as to strengthen defense against disease and infections. That is, prioritise on building a healthy society.

 

•         Streamline the governance of infrastructure development. This is meant to accelerate the delivery of human settlements; water and sanitation. This would entail shortening and tightening procurement process; and tightening contract management for infrastructure delivery. This is meant to eliminate the health high risks and vulnerability that arises out of homelessness; and lack of access to water and sanitation. Accelerated delivery of human settlements; water and sanitation; schools; and social amenities will greatly contribute to disease prevention and spread, whilst also contributing to job creation.

 

•         Establish Anti-Corruption Special Courts. Shortening procurement processes carries the risk of increased acts of corruption. Therefore, mechanisms need to be built to prevent corrupt activities, and where they manifest, government must have appropriate institutional mechanisms to investigate; arrest; prosecute; and jail offenders within a short space of time.

 

•         Bureaucratic Productivity. The state administration still operates in a pre-covid19 pandemic mode. It has not demonstrated  a sense of urgency. It still operates on a normal routine and compliance mode. It is mostly the Department of Health that has demonstrated urgency primarily because health workers are directly affected. However, the entire administration needs to rachet its delivery performance and manifest efficiency; effectiveness; and responsiveness.

 

•         Rescue Governance. The establishment of commissions and task teams to investigate corruption and other maleficence is a symptom of poor performance by state institutions. It is actually the failure of governance in its totality. Therefore, it is crucial that government tightens the management and adherence to governance processes and systems.

 

•         Leadership. This is where you come in as well, Chief. Thus far, you have done well in managing the Covid-19 Pandemic Project Response. However, deep into the pandemic, you need to demonstrate crisis leadership. Your leadership approach or style has remained relatively the same as in the pre Covid-19. You need to move into a “Decisions! Decisions! Decisions-making mode”. President Nelson Mandela had the luxury for consultation. But you do not, Mr. President. We are in a natural crisis. This may not be a good example, but George Bush writes that after 9/11 he learnt that leadership was about making decisions. You have no luxury for “consensus building” outside your own cabinet. Just engage your cabinet colleagues, decide, and implement. The entire state machinery cannot move into the higher gear of state performance if you as the apex leader still operate in a pre-pandemic mode. You need to make crisis decisions; demand implementation from those that account to you; identify and punish nonperformers.

 

•         Meritocracy over political balancing act. The political leadership of Dr. Zweli Mkhize; and Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini – Zuma since this pandemic started has demonstrated the importance of ministers to have both the technical and political acumen in areas of their deployment. In this crises mode, factional belonging should not supersede meritocracy. The crises need a substantive adjustment in both political and administrative leadership.

 

Mr. President, history shows that difficult historical moments usually unleash the ultimate ability in the human character in the forms of: survival and leadership. Survival is mainly personally driven. But leadership is an overarching trait that focus on the survival of all, and progressive projection to the future. It is for this reason that most heroes can be identified with historical difficult moments. This is because such individuals have risen above the normality of doing “business as usual”  They have not let the “apartheid/colonialism crisis go to waste” – but generated the best out of it. Such have been the “unreasonable men and women” who have ditched the existing formulae and assumed unconventional leadership.

 

That is your challenge, Mr. President. Generate at least one overarching big idea and take three drastic decisions with a snowballing effect. Do not allow some of your political allies to hold you hostage to their factional agendas – beyond you they will be rent-seeking at the door of your successor because all they truly desire is the prestige of being in high office.

 

Let history record that as the pandemic hit South Africa, you Mr. President, provided high levels of leadership, rather than merely project managing the response.

 

In Good Faith.

Dumisani Tembe

9 August 2020