Govt snuffs out post-1994 winds of change

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Sept. 2, 2016 - PRLog -- This view was expressed today by Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane, at the end of a week in which two highly respected financial institutions, Futuregrowth and Jyske Bank, announced that they would not be supporting SOEs, the Rand took another knock, and speculation about the Hawks' actions against the Minister of Finance continued unabated.

Archbishop Ndungane, considered one of South Africa's elder statesmen, said mismanagement by the government of the economy, state owned enterprises (SOEs) and its public and unsavoury infighting would bring South Africa to its knees.

"It should be remembered that it was financial sanctions, the like of which the actions by Futuregrowth and Jyske remind us, that was one of the key drivers in bringing apartheid to its knees. The ANC-led tripartite alliance would do well to remember this. Its mismanagement as a government, its financial policies in particular and the clumsy, antagonistic treatment of its own minister of finance by one of the organs of the state, has effectively resulted in it scoring an own goal. It will struggle to regain the initiative not only on the domestic playing field, but internationally as well, and the chances of the country being downgraded to junk status at the end of the year are now good.

"This government has systematically destroyed all the good done in the immediate post-1994 years. The winds of change for the better that it could have been instrumental in bringing about in Africa as a whole have turned into a force five gale. It is nothing short of iniquitous."

Archbishop Ndungane said that many people, including former Robben Island political prisoners, had made huge sacrifices in the hope that the freedom that was won in 1994 would bring about a sustainable future for future generations. He said he found it ironic and tragic that this opportunity was being squandered by hyenas intent "on gorging themselves sick at the feeding trough of the state".  Strangely, he noted, this included some who themselves had made sacrifices to bring about the change that they now ignored in their duty to govern for the good of all people.

As a result people who were poor and were discriminated against in 1994 as a result of apartheid, are now poorer and still suffer from unfulfilled promises to alleviate their plight. Promises of a fair and just society in which everyone, irrespective of colour, creed or race, had a place in the South African sun, have come to be seen as empty: the lies of politicians who act only in their own interests.

"I regrettably have to say that South Africa is at a moment as seminal as that day in 1990 when the then apartheid president, F W de Klerk, unbanned political organisations such as the ANC and PAC and announced the release of the father of our democracy, Nelson Mandela, and other political prisoners. It took a statesman, no matter how much we disagreed with him at the time, to do this.

"The question is: is there a statesman in any of the leadership structures of the tripartite alliance ready to take similar steps? Events of the past year suggest not. I hope I am wrong and wait to see if the tripartite alliance in general and the ANC in particular can rise above the polluted political waters it has dragged us all into."

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Note: Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane is the former Archbishop of Cape Town. He held this office as head of the Anglican Church in South Africa for 11 years from September 1996 to September 2007 when he retired. He is currently the Executive Director of the Historic Schools Restoration Project (an initiative to restore the historic schools of South Africa) and President of African Monitor (an independent continent-wide organisation that monitors the development of grassroots communities).