One of the big cinematic moments of 2004 was The Day After Tomorrow. A big-budget disaster movie themed around climate change, it deployed spectacular CGI to depict the destruction of the Northern Hemisphere – and the personal drama of the cataclysm’s survivors.
As much as it was great entertainment, it was out to make a point about environmental politics, and, in the final sequence, the climate change-denying American president Raymond Becker (for the first part of the film, vice-president, and a figure whose resemblance to his then real-life counterpart, Dick Cheney, was not lost on anyone) makes a penitent address from the embassy in Mexico, after the United States is reduced to a frozen tundra.
‘We were wrong. I was wrong. The fact that my first address to you comes from a consulate on foreign soil is a testament to our changed reality.’
Our changed reality
These words resonate now – and not just because a movie like that might provide entertainment for a few hours in the weeks ahead. That we have woken to a country in lockdown is a testament to our changed reality. We, most of us, are confined to our homes, with the military deployed to enforce it. The ordinary rhythm of our lives, and the interactions that enrich it, are on hold. A dangerous epidemic is on the loose – its impact vividly illustrated by the chilling reports from China, Italy and Iran – and the sense of foreboding is palpable.
President Cyril Ramaphosa put it when announcing the State of Disaster: ‘The world is facing a medical emergency far graver than what we have experienced in over a century.’
The measures that the government has introduced have been widely endorsed as appropriate to the threat and a demonstration of the president’s mettle.
But this is a crisis on top of a crisis
The coming weeks will vindicate or refute this.
But this is a crisis on top of a crisis. Economic growth has been indifferent for more than a decade, and is currently negative. This had nothing to do with Covid-19 (the 2020 Budget Review – published only a month ago – makes no mention of the virus).
The reasons for this have been recognised for years: electricity shortages, crime, corruption, a failure to provide skills-generating education and a dearth of local savings, and that South Africa is just not primed for growth. This would be bad enough, but a raft of policy choices – policy-makers would euphemistically refer to these as ‘policy uncertainty’ – on matters such as empowerment, property rights, broadband and energy have needlessly aggravated the situation.
There is as good as zero chance that South Africa will pull out of this any time now. Economist Dawie Roodt has estimated that the year as a whole will see an economic contraction of as much as 3% of GDP.
Chilling point
More pertinently, South Africa’s fiscal position is dire. State debt, according to the Budget Review, stood at some 61.6% of GDP in 2019/20 but would bullet upwards to 71.6% in 2022/2023. As the document noted: ‘The state is borrowing at an increased rate to fund operations, with the deficit projected at 6.3 per cent of GDP this year. Debt-service costs now absorb 15 cents of every rand government collects. By 2022/23, interest payments will exceed health spending.’
Chilling final point, that.
And with a sluggish economy, revenues are slowing down. Altogether, as finance minister Tito Mboweni said last year, ‘The food cupboards are almost bare.’
All of which is a major brake on the ability of the state to respond to the crisis, certainly if a major stimulus-style cash injection is suggested. Sure, there are things that can be done. Relief measures for small businesses and tourism enterprises and for employees to cushion possible job losses have been announced. There are pots of money that can be accessed – the surplus on the Unemployment Insurance Fund being one – and the SA Reserve Bank has announced that it will be buying government bonds to inject some liquidity into the system. Appeals are being made for the private sector to provide contributions.
But it’s difficult to imagine that this is going to be enough to support the economy through the immediate crisis and give it the necessary impetus to get back on track.
Administrative competence
Alongside South Africa’s resources constraints, steering the country through what is now under way will demand a level of administrative competence that the state all too often fails to attain. The president himself referred to this in a recent contribution in which he committed to building a ‘capable state’.
The extent of corruption or simple dysfunctionality in governance is universally acknowledged. This often revolves around state tenders – something that is likely to feature prominently in the next few weeks.
Where locally specific measures are needed, the failure of many of the country’s municipalities to operate effectively will likely undermine the necessary conditions for prevention and containment. Compromised water supply systems, for example, make one of the most elementary preventative actions – washing one’s hands – difficult.
The state of readiness of institutions from public hospitals to the police service to handle a crisis of this magnitude is open to question. Particularly where the measures called for are going to stoke resentment.
South Africa is relying on an administrative apparatus that performs indifferently at the best of times, and has not been stress-tested for current conditions
Indeed, in a piece in the Daily Maverick, Marianne Merten commented on the proposed relief strategies: ‘Although the UIF has a positive balance of more than R160-billion, its benefits administration has been sharply criticised. It can often take months. And the paperwork is just that – actual paperwork that needs to be printed, then completed at various points, including bank forms to confirm banking details, and ultimately submitted by email or fax-to-email to the relevant labour centre.’
South Africa is relying on an administrative apparatus that performs indifferently at the best of times, and has not been stress-tested for current conditions.
Unfortunately, a good part of this malaise owes its origins to the deliberate politicisation of the civil service – ‘cadre deployment’ – and the dogged determination to push through racial staffing policies. Ideological in impulse, neither was conducive to the sort of meritocratic civil service and hard-functioning institutions that we need now.
The real question
Perhaps the real question on the table is whether we as a country will learn any lessons from what we are experiencing. President Ramaphosa has said: ‘Many have had to make difficult choices and sacrifices, but all have been determined that these choices and sacrifices are absolutely necessary if our country is to emerge stronger from this disaster.’
Correct. So must South Africa. We face this crisis with uncertain resilience, rather as the world faced the superstorm in The Day After Tomorrow.
If the expectations are that as a society we need merely to drag ourselves back to the assumptions and practices that have proven so compromising, we will have missed the chance to say, ‘I was wrong’, and the change to our reality will have proven transitory – until a new crisis closes in. Or we can accept clearly the missteps of past decades and rectify them, and be willing to discard the ideological deadweight.
This would indeed be a testament to our changed reality.
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