Well, that was the 2025 political year, that was. I won’t miss it, and neither should any of us. It was a year in which SA’s accretion of bad habits reached their zenith.
And the worst one of these bad habits — establishing a commission, launching “an operation”, or putting together a “task team” to solve a problem — is one I want to see the back of permanently.
I don’t want 2026 to be blighted by this “baddest” of bad SA habits. It’s holding us back from building an excellent nation.
Nothing illustrates this more than actions in Africa’s greatest city, Johannesburg, in the run-up to the G20 leaders’ summit in November.
Days before the conference of world leaders, the City of Johannesburg ran a three-day “CEO-City Clean-Up Campaign” which saw government chiefs, business leaders, civil society and local communities go out to spruce up their neighbourhoods.
I am writing these words just 20 days after the summit, looking out on Zoo Lake in Parkview, and there are piles of rubbish throughout the park.
Potholes and abandoned roadworks have returned on major and minor arteries such as Oxford Road (which was used by presidents just three weeks ago).
The “clean-up campaign” made Joburg look nice for all of a second, but it has not solved the city’s problems.
The state of that one park is made even more tragic by the fact that seven months before the summit President Cyril Ramaphosa prompted the city to establish a “bomb squad” of senior leaders and ex-administrators to help mayor Dada Morero do his job.
The fact that he needed a “bomb squad” to do what numerous other mayors across the globe do routinely (does the mayor of Kigali or Cape Town or Tokyo have a “special task team” to help him fix potholes and clean the city?) as part of their responsibilities tells you everything you need to know about how bad things are in Joburg. The man cannot do his job.
SA has 1.3-million relatively well-paid public servants.
SA teachers, for example, earn nearly 50% more than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average, and our civil servants are better paid than the median SA taxpayer.
The National Treasury says the number of public servants earning more than R1-million per year has increased by 280% from a decade ago to 37,800.
These people, and the politicians elected to lead them, should be doing their jobs.
Indeed, many of them do. However, instead of making this the most potent and effective civil service in the world, we continually find ways to have others do their jobs for them.
In SA there is a campaign and a task team to do a job that someone should already be doing.
We are a country run by task teams and commissions.
From the highest echelons of our society to the lowest, a “special” team is doing jobs which are fully staffed.
Police oversight bodies and corruption busters should have been probing corrupt cops and politicians, but that job is now being done by the Madlanga inquiry.
The insurance company Outsurance’s traffic points men now direct the Joburg and Tshwane traffic while metro cops twiddle their thumbs (in some cases on the same corner).
Private security companies protect communities while cops stamp ID copies.
SA business is now involved in resolving the country’s water crisis, rail freight and Transnet crisis, electricity crisis.
Business leaders are seriously considering intervening in Joburg. Meanwhile, the city’s employees will continue to draw their salaries while some or other body does their job for them.
The fish rots from the top, of course. President Ramaphosa has a task team and a commission for every decision he must take; hence everyone else is doing the same.
How is this in any way aiding in the campaign by Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and now Ramaphosa “to build and maintain a capable state”?
All three men talked up the idea of the capable state but lately every major piece of work is outsourced to a clearly more capable external actor.
Of course, the government cannot do everything.
In special circumstances, or where there are major conflicts of interest, task teams and commissions of inquiry may be warranted.
The problem arises when every second problem is shunted off to a task team.
Then we must ask ourselves what, really, is the point of these exercises except to encourage laziness in the civil service and to line the pockets of external actors.
In this scenario, everyone loses.
A culture of problem solving, excellence and accountability can only be forged in a team which is challenged to solve its problems.
Our civil servants will forever be cowed by problems if politicians keep delegating their jobs to task teams and “bomb squads” and commissions.
Fact is, if one cannot do the job they must ship out.
As we close out the year, please, please, can we leave task teams and commissions behind with 2025? Please?
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