Down to Earth – David Altman

Apartheid denied the most basic rights to millions of South Africans. Now, huge backlogs in housing, education, health care and job creation must be tackled. Jay Naidoo, as Minister without Portfolio in the new Government of National Unity, is the person in charge of co-ordinating a Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) involving the provision of a vast range of services and infrastructure. There is no doubt that his heart lies in the right place. As the former secretary general of the Cosatu trade union movement, Naidoo was at the forefront of the fight against apartheid.

He knows what needs to be done. But, as he tells Jenny Cargill: “We have had to come to terms with the fact that the challenge of setting up government was greater than we anticipated.”

How do you encapsulate the RDP?

The RDP is a growth and development strategy. The key elements relate to how we shift government expenditure from old priorities to new ones; and how we re-organize the civil service to deliver efficient and effective services. In that context, how do we establish a set of socio-economic indicators against which the performance of government can be assessed in a transparent way?

But there are various interpretations of the RDP. For example, the South African Communist Party has criticised government for being too statist in its approach to the RDP. It argues that the RDP should not be a market driven program, but a people-driven initiative.

There is no contention around what the RDP seeks to achieve, but there is a debate on how we achieve the RDP. I think that is very healthy. Our President, Nelson Mandela, has emphasized that the RDP needs to be driven by our people and focused on meeting their needs. But our people include all stakeholders, from government to employers to trade unions, to civil movements to rural organizations. Essentially, therefore, the RDP is a partnership between government and the rest of society. All the stakeholders must have an input and must participate in the implementation of the program. We must strike a balance between the role of the market – crucial to economic growth – with the role of government in ensuring that the basic needs of our people are met.

There is a strong perception that the RDP is something that the government does unto others. How do you ensure that it becomes something more than a government program?

The government needed to kick-start the RDP. So, up to now we have focused on social upliftment; delivering in the short term. But a critical area of the RDP is the stimulation of economic growth, which is needed to sustain the RDP in the medium- to long-term. In May, the President announced a number of projects, most notably free health care for certain sections of the population and a school-feeding program to be implemented within the first 100 days of the new government. We have spent a lot of our time conceptualising these projects, and planning them in a participatory way. Clearly, the need to involve communities is a critical second phase.

Governing in a manner which seeks the participation of all stakeholders is time consuming, but grassroots supporters are intolerant of delays.

Our approach is to move with haste, but to proceed slowly. We have had to come to terms with the fact that the challenge of setting up government was greater than we anticipated. The planning and co-ordination phases have taken up a lot of our time. But we are confident that we have made an enormous amount of progress. Of course, the 100 day deadline put considerable pressure on us. But it was the right decision. It drove us to work on the delivery of the RDP. We cannot ignore the fact that there are bottlenecks in delivering on the RDP and we cannot ignore the fact that there are expectations among the people. Our lack of communication with people about what we are doing and about the constraints we are facing has been a weakness, but we are addressing that now.

What has struck you most about coming into government?

That you have the power and capacity to do things which can change the lives of millions of people. We are finding an incredible amount of agreement within the Government of National Unity and within the civil service about what the most important challenges are. Therefore, we are developing processes which are creating the political will to fulfil those challenges. It is exciting. Therefore, despite the debate and different interpretations, the will to make the RDP work is there among all parties.

But there is a sense that the political power needed to achieve the required transformations remains constrained particularly at provincial level.

Understand the challenge we face. There has been decades of operating according to the needs of a minority. We face the problem of extending the delivery of social services to all our people. That is monumental. We are talking about improving delivery to three quarters of the population. To do this we must find mechanisms which enhance our capacity to deliver. So, we are incorporating into RDP projects capacity building criteria. For example, the school feeding scheme would have been very easy to implement had we simply gone to a large company and asked it to take charge. Instead, we sought to build into this project criteria which enhance community involvement, job creation, affirmative action and training. On the whole, projects funded through the RDP Fund must meet these criteria. By getting these criteria incorporated into projects, the Fund can leverage into the civil service different management practices.

When do you expect the private sector and international capital to enter the RDP picture?

Having met the challenges of the first I00 days, we now expect to begin to interact with donors and the private sector for grant finance for the RDP Fund. On the question of investment, both domestic and foreign, there are great possibilities: take areas like electrification, telecommunications, transport and water provision.

There is scepticism in business about your taxation intentions. What assurances can you give?

We do not anticipate a permanently high level of taxation. We are committed to maintaining fiscal discipline. In fact, we are introducing mechanisms to bring government consumption expenditure down and hence to reduce the budget deficit. These mechanisms will tackle the organization of the public sector and the budgetary expenditure patterns. Under review are specific measures around tighter financial controls and performance audit trails that would insist on more efficient use of state resource.

It has already been stated within government that civil service numbers will have to be increased as an affirmative action program is undertaken. In addition, a number of ministers have registered their need for bigger budget allocations for expenditures which do not fit well with RDP priorities: for example, defence and foreign affairs. In this light, how will you contain government expenditure and the deficit?

We will see a fascinating debate about priorities. We have got to accept that there is a limited resource pool, and the distribution of that pool must relate to the priorities of the people. The Cabinet will certainly have to make decisions on this; and some of them will be pretty harsh. Furthermore, the priorities will not be determined by government alone. Parliament will play an important role, particularly given the plan to make the budgetary process more transparent.

Jenny Cargill is a specialist writer on South Africa’s political and economic policy changes. She is a director of an information service, BusinessMap SA, which assists, among others, investors in all understanding of the new environment in South Africa.

South Africa, The Journal of Trade, Industry and Investment
Publisher, David Altman
Writer, Jenny Cargill