I really hadn’t given much thought to Tito Mboweni since he left office in 2021. His death last week, at the relatively young age of 65, was another instance of the passing of the 1994 generation.
I cannot say I was “saddened” at the news, since I had no personal emotional investment there, though naturally I wish his family and loved ones all comfort at this time.
For me, there were notes of pathos and nostalgia at hearing the news. This related to experiences in which I have a personal emotional and intellectual investment. Having grown up in the tumultuous 1970s and 1980s and having lived through the chaotic and violent early 1990s, the transition held out the prospect of a fundamental reset and of getting the country onto a path of growth and development.
Although I had long been fascinated by politics, I took an especially detailed interest in the workings of South Africa’s post-transition government. There was something surreal about an arrangement in which the National Party and ANC co-operated (at least in theory) in office; it was perhaps even more surprising to see the IFP involved, given that it had only agreed to contest the election at the last moment and that it and the ANC had been involved in a grim civil war in parts of the country.
More saliently, the new government had a raft of responsibilities of profound importance for the country’s future. For the first time in its history, citizenship would not depend on race. And not only were individual laws going to be rewritten – call this a matter of politics, and the imperatives driven by the shift to constitutional supremacy – but so was the structure of governance. Remember that even the internal geographical demarcation of the country was new, the provinces having been a creature of the interim constitution.
Labour minister
Tito Mboweni was appointed by then President Mandela as labour minister. He was someone to watch, given the ANC’s commitment and indebtedness to its union allies. His incumbency saw the introduction of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (better known as the CCMA), the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Employment Equity Act, and the Skills Development Act.
No question, Mboweni was pushing a highly interventionist labour agenda (though in his defence, sort of, there was plenty of precedent for this in South Africa). Given South Africa’s unemployment crisis, and the long-standing decline of the economy’s capacity to absorb labour, the advisability of this course of action was hotly debated back then. As the country’s unemployment rate now sits substantially higher than it did in the 1990s, voices like those of the IRR that opposed this policy drive can claim to have been vindicated.
Indeed, as Reserve Bank governor, Mboweni would from time to time express frustration at the unintended (though, I’d say, foreseeable) impact of the country’s labour legislation. This extended to a memorable instance in which he declared himself happy with the “Afrikaners” who worked in the Bank – “they stay and do the work” – while decrying the fact that many of the black staff he was recruiting would build enough expertise to market themselves elsewhere.
I’ll go further and say that my impression was that he was genuinely committed to non-racism. As labour minister he would defend the legislation he piloted (some of it, anyway) as being of benefit to white blue-collar workers. He also stuck his neck out on cultural matters. In 2019 he remarked: “I publicly, and in my personal capacity, DISAGREE, with the phasing out of Afrikaans as one of the mediums of teaching at the University of Pretoria. As a country, you are shooting yourselves down. You will regret it in 30 years’ time.”
Pragmatist
My sense was that Mboweni was a pragmatist. He certainly held his ideological positions, but was willing to concede the evidence of reality. Though heretical to the more ideologically obsessed, his later views would be quite recognisable to business people frustrated with the environment in which they were forced to operate.
Perhaps what got me thinking about all this was that he had made enough of an impression on me to be worth remembering. This was true for most of the political leadership of the period following the transition.
For the most part, those who constituted South Africa’s first post-transition government were people of gravitas and capability. Many had compelling biographies, and could boast impressive personal achievements.
Looking back at this time, it was possible to believe that the decisions they made – even the bad ones – at least represented a deeply held worldview, and one which they could defend with some eloquence. It was also a time in which the leadership of the country actually led. Don’t dismiss that.
Neither easy nor popular
President Mandela, and his deputy and successor, Thabo Mbeki, stepped back from commitments to nationalise swathes of the economy, and proceeded to rein in the deficit. This was despite the promises to (and clamour to) immediately ramp up social spending. It was neither an easy nor an entirely popular decision, yet it was one that was taken and pursued.
Don’t misunderstand. This wasn’t a golden age. And none of this is to deny the shortcomings of the time and of the incumbents at all. Much of the popular conception of this time lopes into starry-eyed hero worship. Someone like Stella Sigcau had no place in cabinet. This was also a time in which litanies of policy missteps were made – some under Mboweni’s direction – and some very unfortunate courses for South Africa’s future were set. The country’s Aids debacle arose here, corruption was allowed to get its claws into new and fragile institutions, cadre deployment was set on track, and racial engineering proliferated in legislation and regulation.
It was, however, a time and a generation that made itself worth remembering. Over the past two decades, too many cabinet seats have been occupied by the insubstantial and the grotesquely venal, people frequently not only incompetent in their roles, but uninterested in actual governance.
From that point of view, I remember Mboweni and what he represented with an ambivalent fondness. His legacy is a complex and contradictory one, deeply imperfect in what it has meant for the country today. But that he is remembered while the names of some of our current cabinet may elude us is a salutary indication of the regression that has afflicted our public life.
For that, I am deeply saddened.
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Image: Mboweni with President Cyril Ramaphosa before Mboweni presented the 2019 Budget, via Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/47155966561