Africa-Press – South-Africa. South Africa’s successive ANC governments since 1994 have failed to complete the transformation of the country’s economy, leaving many individuals dissatisfied.
While the party managed to significantly increase access to basic services, it failed to meaningfully increase participation in the formal economy.
South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States, Roelf Meyer, explained how the ANC’s plans to improve economic outcomes have effectively been left on the shelf to gather dust.
Meyer told eNCA that this has led many South Africans to express significant discontent with the country’s economy and anger towards the government.
“What we failed to do or to succeed with is the completion of the socio-economic transformation of the economy,” Meyer said.
“That relates to how people experience their livelihoods today, and that unhappiness is felt across the spectrum. The first thing they blame is the ‘other’.”
Meyer was appointed as South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States by his old negotiating partner, President Cyril Ramaphosa, on 15 April.
An accomplished politician, Meyer served in the governments of three successive presidents, PW Botha, FW de Klerk, and Nelson Mandela.
Most importantly, he was the chief negotiator for the National Party in the 1990s to bring apartheid to an end, with Ramaphosa being his counterpart representing the ANC.
Now he is tasked with repairing relations between Washington and Pretoria, with much focus on how he will present the country’s case to the United States.
Meyer explained that the ANC’s plan to transform South Africa was the right one, but that the second phase of economic transformation was not implemented effectively.
“The fact that we did not succeed with the socio-economic transformation of the country after we completed the Constitution has led to where we are,” Meyer said.
“When we completed the negotiations for the Constitution, I thought it would take us 15 years to complete this socio-economic transformation as envisaged by the Constitution.”
Meyer understood this socio-economic transformation as a process of correcting past injustices and the lack of fair access to the formal economy in South African history.
“It is ordained in Chapter 2 of the Constitution, the aspirations of a transformed South Africa. But, now it is more than 30 years later, and we have hardly made any progress with regard to that,” Meyer said.
Why transformation failed
Roelf Meyer (right) with US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III
Meyer explained that the transformation failed due to a lack of focus after the negotiations to establish the Constitution ended and the subsequent mismanagement of the economy.
Following the creation of the Constitution, there was no clear plan as to how the transformation of South African society and the economy would occur.
This led to a patchwork approach of using competition policy, black economic empowerment, and other methods, without a clear overarching plan.
“I think it is partly because of the hugeness of what we had to address that happened over decades and centuries,” Meyer said.
The scale of the challenge was also exaggerated by South Africa’s rapidly growing population, with immigration playing a major role in increasing pressure on infrastructure.
“All of those brought about challenges, but then one also has to ask ourselves: Did we do enough with the opportunities we had? I don’t think we did,” Meyer said.
“The question, quite frankly, is – why have we not succeeded in that regard in the past 30 years?”
Meyer said South Africa failed to develop the next phase of the project, which would include a plan to dramatically transform the country’s economy.
“The Reconstruction and Development Programme was the right idea, but it was stopped after two years and replaced with the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) plan,” Meyer said.
“GEAR delivered in terms of economic growth, very well. We succeeded as far as that is. But it did not deliver the transformation. That is why we are still struggling.”
Meyer explained that this has left South Africans asking what could have been done instead, with the answer lying in outlining a clear plan on how the aspirations of the Constitution should be implemented.
“The government has more recently produced the National Development Plan, which is a good document. But, if you now ask people in government what is in it, I don’t think they will be able to tell you,” Meyer said.
“It is almost as if it was produced and the plan was there, but it was put on the shelf, and we don’t see any of the results. It was never implemented. We are back at square one.”
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