It’s no use clinging to false concept of public service

The ANC’s most senior body

the National Executive Committee (NEC) is full of pretenders. Last weekend they demanded information from public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan on the state of state-owned companies, as though they had just arrived in South Africa from Outer Mongolia.

Most of the NEC members work for the state in one form or another. They are likely to get more information from such platforms than from the minister, who has developed a novel form of public accountability by which he shares what only he deems important.

The sorry state of the SOEs is something they, as the drivers of the ANC, are directly responsible for and they should not be asking for PowerPoint presentations about it. We live it every day, with routine power cuts and a doddering economy.

That Transnet has unsustainable debt of

R130bn is in the annual reports and in National Treasury presentations the lords of the ANC choose to not read.

It would have been excruciating for Gordhan to face the NEC his first hot meeting with the body since he opted out from the structure last year. He announced he was not keen on another five-year term, though the ANC branches’ lack of confidence in him was clear when his name did not appear on preliminary lists.

It would also be difficult for Gordhan to make the ANC’s 2024 list of parliamentarians from which the party selects its cabinet ministers, bar the two the president can choose from outside the National Assembly.

Managing how he climbs down from a career in public office with some dignity seems not to be on Gordhan’s radar. Failing to go voluntarily and hoping to be called up when a cabinet is formed is a recipe for disappointment on his part.

He may well be approaching the issue from a public service point of view, in the way ANC members used to see their work as something greater than honours or self-reward. The question in his case would be about the quality of the service and why he would want to put himself through the indignity of a job in which he can no longer make a positive impact.

He is not the only one clinging to a false concept about public service. Roger Jardine, a respectable former technocrat and business leader, is raring to join the political circus. Jardine is an attractive idea for the multiparty charter crowd, which has the DA at its core.

The idea of hopping on an existing platform may be tempting, but the chattering charterists are bad at political arithmetic. They would not be able to form a government if the ANC simply worked with the EFF precisely what they wish to avert. A survey by the Brenthurst Foundation this week shows the ANC would lose power in high turnout scenarios. Such surveys aren’t always helpful as they are often from small sample sizes. Where they help is in the political back room, informing strategy and how parties can change their messaging.

The communication of the survey outcomes often doesn’t factor in the undecided voters or emphasise how voter turnout affects the percentage sharing of the spoils. The ANC’s ability to peak just weeks before an election is almost always underrated by its opponents. It tends to pick up five percentage points or so in its last week of campaigning.

Next year’s government will be influenced by the turnout factor more than raw votes, and by how particular constituencies respond to specific leaders and their parties. The small margins will count.

Jardine has broad experience as a former freedom fighter who made a name for himself as a 29-year old director-general under the

Mandela administration, and now is among South Africa’s most prominent business leaders. His availability for politics would not move people who would otherwise have voted against the ANC. In other words, he would attract the DA’s traditional base. It is simply a question of class and ethnic affinities.

One would think it’s a simple issue to understand: South Africa’s politics is very much race dominated. Trying to swim against that tide is one thing, and fighting the ANC without strategy and political smarts is another. Both options will return the ANC to power, driven by parties like the EFF.

The ANC has been in power much longer than it should because opposition parties and business funders have limp political antennae. They are unable to tactically exploit the ANC’s weakness and present a vision that would be attractive to the customers: the voters.

Jardine, as a successful person in business, surely understands the need to respond to customers’ needs. Either way, the ANC will regret making itself unattractive to its blue blood such as Jardine, as people like him could have been brought in to manage complex businesses. It is too late for the ANC to do anything about it. It is too broke for change to be possible.

I hope Jardine is suspicious enough of business voices who may push him to hop on the chattering charterists’ wagon, as it appears to be a well-funded, strategy-weak mission.