The Rational Standard recently published an article of mine about the ANC and its actions at the heart of the state machinery in South Africa after it took over the country in 1994.
The article cast a light on the ANC’s actions within provincial government in the years shortly after its takeover, when the major task of transforming the state dispensation rested on its shoulders. What I set out in the article was my personal experience of those years. When I voluntarily served the New South Africa in a senior public-service position, I still laboured under the illusion that Madiba’s idea of a new dispensation with equal rights for all had finally dawned, and that it would be my privilege, precisely because the ANC had appointed me as a non-ANC cadre, to help achieve that honourable goal.
The long and the short of the experience, however, was one of great disillusionment and disappointment. ANC cadres very quickly hijacked the public service politically, with the aim of abusing it as a vehicle for personal enrichment. Their underhand and unethical methods of achieving their goal knew no bounds.
This was despite a CODESA and interim constitutional agreement that a transitional evolution would take place with the assistance of expertise from the Old Order, precisely so as not to cripple the administration of the country. But the comrades could not restrain themselves, as I related in the article. They could not wait to politicise the public service and, within a few years, created a corrupt, patronage-driven, extractive public service whose main purpose was the acquisition of personal wealth.
In a second, later Rational Standard article, I shifted the emphasis to the municipal terrain. I tried to demonstrate how utterly unprepared and incompetent the average ANC cadre is to exercise proper municipal oversight.
That also explains why municipalities under the ANC have in most cases collapsed, and why a continuation of the ANC’s method of deploying cadres to municipal councils is simply not equal to the complex task of being a municipal councillor. It therefore offers no hope that the post-2026 municipal elections will necessarily produce better outcomes.
The already precarious municipal situation will be further aggravated by political infighting at municipal level, precisely because of the likelihood that up to 50% of the new municipal councils will not have absolute majorities for any particular political party, creating so-called “hung councils”.
In this present article, I would like to share with readers how I experienced the inner workings of the ANC at a much later stage, after it already had a few decades of governing experience behind it, at municipal level.
This was in my capacity as a non-executive director of a municipal local economic development agency. I was appointed and reappointed year after year over four years as a non-executive director of the agency. For all practical purposes, it was a pro bono appointment, with small stipends paid for attending meetings, as well as reimbursement of transport costs to attend board meetings.
The agency functioned in terms of the Companies Act, with the municipality as shareholder. The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) covered most of the operating expenses within strict rules and, as an oversight body, monitored the agency’s operations through its own officials and reporting requirements.
In terms of the agreement with the IDC, the municipality, as sole shareholder, also had to make certain contributions to the running of the agency. I shall return later to that co-funding provision, which in practice was mostly never complied with by the municipality.
The agency’s directors were appointed in terms of the Companies Act and therefore had the full fiduciary duties that the law places on directors. The theoretical advantage of a municipal development agency was that it could function at arm’s length and “independently” of the municipality, since business decisions could in principle be taken without municipal council or management interference.
In principle, therefore, it was a very good development concept.
By way of interest, and also because it may address sceptical readers who have expressed scepticism about my views and motives on the basis of my previous critical articles about the ANC, I wish to mention the following: I would not have been appointed as a director if the ANC had not still valued my good intentions and integrity.
Of course, the fact that it was the Industrial Development Corporation that monitored the process also played a role, because its own reputation and funds were at stake and therefore required that directors be appointed on merit. Despite that, the ANC city council, and the executive mayor in particular, nevertheless had the final say over such appointments.
I believe that sceptics and critics will read it as the reality demonstrates: if I criticise the ANC in government, it is not because of anti-ANC sentiments per se. If I had been anti-ANC, I would not in the first place have voluntarily been appointed for four years as a senior public servant in the new ANC administration. I would certainly also not, almost two decades later, again have been appointed in an ANC-controlled state set-up at municipal level to serve in a senior position for a further four years.
To put it even more clearly: I criticise the ANC with disappointment, disillusionment and pain in my heart, because I very much wanted to help make it a successful new ruler of South Africa, as the country’s voters wanted it.
But alas, after decades of failures, many of them due to selfishness and greed that led to massive corruption, but also due to outdated policies from the Soviet Union era that had long since led to major failures elsewhere, I simply could no longer remain silent.
My criticism is sharp, but deliberately so, because, as it is said: “It is sometimes necessary to be cruel to be kind.”
My criticism is based on first-hand experience of eight years of active participation in ANC administration and development efforts, where I continuously tried to impress my own professionalism and ethical value system upon the cadres. But the bad guys unfortunately won, as they say.
At the same time, I also give credit to a small minority of very good ANC officials who in the past, and still today, try hard to facilitate and manage proper public administration and development. I take my hat off to them, because I know from experience that the reversal of practices that have rotted past the “point of no return” is not easy.
The ANC’s crumbling gives hope, but there are a tremendous number of vested interests in the party that will literally be protected to the death by the large number of extremely corrupt ANC cadres.
Back to my development-agency experiences.
One of the newly appointed board’s first tasks was to appoint a chief executive officer. The process was approached professionally, and fair interviews were conducted with the shortlisted candidates.
One of the applicants was an outstanding black woman with a private-school education and private-sector experience in a relatively senior post, with proven skills. She was, however, not simply and straightforwardly selected by the board members unanimously, even though she was by far the best candidate.
There were attempts by a few board members to appoint a candidate who presumably had political motives and would have been influenced by political masters, something that would have caused the entire project to miss its purpose.
The presence of a majority of politically “neutral” board members and the influence of the Industrial Development Corporation official, however, led to the correct final decision: real competence was appointed on merit.
This enabled the agency, for about three years, to launch real development projects successfully, within budget and with clean audit outcomes.
It was proof of how it is possible, with competent and honest management, decent and competent board oversight and strategic guidance, and with the absence of political interference, to achieve real developmental success at municipal level.
It should be mentioned that among the series of successful projects of the agency was one in the tourism field that, to this day, still attracts large numbers of national and international tourists. It is operated extremely profitably and has gained fame as one of our country’s most innovative, interesting and visitable tourism attractions.
As previously mentioned in my other article referred to above, I do not wish to share specific names, as it might expose the individuals involved to personal scrutiny with unintended consequences.
It was never my intention to get personal, but I must say that I would have liked to name the stand-outs to do them honour. To succeed in the unhealthy ANC governing milieu, the toxic nature of which I have already described in detail, without being drawn into dishonesty and corruption is indeed a noteworthy achievement.
Back to lessons for success learned from my experience at the municipal development agency: success depends largely on involving the correct private-sector partners in projects.
In cases where, for reasons of redressing historical disadvantage, a partner from a particular racial group is specifically sought to be involved in a project, practice has again shown that merit and competence must trump any possible political influence aimed at forcing the appointment of a mere patronage partner in order to parasitically suck the project dry for personal enrichment, without adding substantial value to the project.
Unfortunately, as with most other ANC stories, the good work of the agency began to falter after about three years.
The reason was a change from the neutral board chairperson to one who increasingly revealed political attitudes and motives. He began making proposals that were clearly aimed at accommodating the politicians.
This was initially opposed by the board members, but it also led to the resignation of board members who were not accustomed to the ANC’s style of political interference and therefore preferred to give up their directorships. They were, of course, then replaced with political lackeys who would accommodate the ANC, even if it sank further successful development projects.
Not long thereafter, the extremely competent chief executive officer to whom I referred also moved on.
She was replaced with the most unthinkable weakling and complete ANC puppet, without any competencies. That was the end of the agency’s achievements and, since I myself also resigned in due course, I cannot say with certainty whether anything other than dubious favouritism projects was then still carried out by the agency.
If any meaningful development work took place thereafter, I never heard of it.
All I could deduce from media reports is that the municipality itself also shortly thereafter experienced the typical ANC collapse. I believe the agency would have followed the same path.
The municipality could or would also never make much of a contribution as co-funder in accordance with the contractual obligation towards the Industrial Development Corporation, which I said earlier in the article I would return to.
I am aware of minor assistance from the district municipality to make up for the municipality’s own unwillingness or inability to meet its financial obligations in respect of the agency. The assistance was mostly not financial, but in kind, such as arranging an investment conference for the agency.
That in itself was something to experience.
On my arrival outside the venue where the investors’ conference was to take place, I was very impressed and excited. There was a row of luxury vehicles parked outside the venue. I was surprised and impressed that such conspicuously affluent potential investors had arrived so early for the conference.
When I entered the hall, however, I ran into the officials of the district municipality, with almost no potential investor in sight.
The luxury vehicles belonged to the officials of the district municipality.
Piet du Plessis is a retiree with a long history of applied socio-economic development. A liberated Afrikaner who has moved beyond self-flagellation, he believes that he has been freed to live out his cultural pride and values and to proclaim them openly when appropriate.
