By Xola Pakati
One of the innovations in post-apartheid governance has been the designation of each month of the year to a specific theme around which the government rallies society to raise awareness and promote united national action. It is an effective way of mobilising popular participation, which ought to be strengthened throughout the public sector, more so the local government sphere.
As human rights month dawns, the country will once again commemorate the Sharpeville massacre, a politically seismic event that occurred on March 21, 1960. Human Rights Day was declared as testimony to the country’s commitment to a human rights culture.
It is, therefore, an opportunity to reflect on our record of building this culture since 1994.
Appraisals may differ in their emphasis, but they will no doubt be unanimous that South Africa has so far built a healthy civil and political rights environment. No citizen can be subjected to arbitrary rule.
Of course, this is no reason to lower our guard. After all, democracy requires an active and mature citizenry that acts to hold those who exercise entrusted power accountable much as it deliberately stays clear of the false and self-defeating cries of the wolf.
The deficit in our country’s human rights record concerns the realisation of socio-economic rights, broadly defined to include unemployment, poverty and inequality. This is one of our country’s unfinished businesses for a host of historical and structural reasons, including the unintended consequences of the corrective efforts of the post-apartheid era. We should spare no effort in closing the deficit because the combined effects of unemployment, poverty and inequality are deeply dehumanising. The triple evils are also good tinder for social and political instability.
In the State of the Nation Address (Sona) recently, President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that the government would “finalise a comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger” in 100 days.
There are significant overlaps between the social compact and the government’s five priorities: “overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic, a massive rollout of infrastructure, a substantial increase in local production, an employment stimulus to create jobs and support livelihoods and the rapid expansion of our energy generation capacity.”
Successful implementation of the compact will undoubtedly facilitate the realisation of socio-economic rights as defined in the constitution of the Republic. These are access to quality education, nutritious food, quality health care, clean water, a clean and sustainable environment, comprehensive social security, quality housing and land for multiple uses.
Implementation should also result in the reduction of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
Local government is crucial to all these processes. The Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM) has been playing its part and intends to increase the momentum in the reduction of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
In an article published in October last year, I reported on the BCMM’s track record in delivering clean water, with R340 million invested in the past five years. “These funds have gone towards the erection of communal water points in informal settlements and water tankers to remote communities. With the help of the national department of water and sanitation, we have up-scaled this service since the outbreak of Covid-19.”
Over the next three years, the BCMM will spend R137 million on environmental and health management, R788 Million to support food-producing initiatives and other entrepreneurial ventures that will further strengthen our efforts for sustainable livelihoods. An amount of R2.96 billion will be spent on water management, including the delivery of clean water.
R1.33 billion will be spent on the delivery of sustainable human settlements and R762 million for spatial planning and development.
We are the first to concede that these efforts are not enough. But they are not insignificant either. In fact, nothing short of a comprehensive social compact will turn around the massive freighter that is unemployment, poverty and inequality and the socio-economic rights backlog.
During the years of the struggle against apartheid, consensus developed that much as leadership was essential, the people were, after all, their own liberators. The link was drawn between the success or failure of objectives and the quality of the interaction between the leadership and the people. We need to keep this vital lesson in mind in the implementation of all government programmes, including the social compact.
This will entail, inter alia, rekindling systematic interaction with the people – structured Izimbizo as but one example – organised interaction with social formations and the overhauling of the government communications machinery. There is a need to place emphasis on the role of the people as agents rather than mere passive recipients of the development effort.
Partly because we come from a past in which the government was something in between a welfare and socialist state in service of the minority to the exclusion of the majority of the population, political and public discourse in our country has, over the years, tended to place emphasis on the role of the government in the development process and less so the responsibility of the people in that regard.
The truth is that the culture-setting effect of this skewed discourse is nowhere near comparable to what obtains in other African countries and the wider Global South. If we are to build a society in which the people become their own liberators as they surely are, we ought to promote a balanced discourse, which, in turn, inspires a partnership between the government and the people. This is an essential success ingredient for the social compact of which President Ramaphosa spoke in the Sona.
So, as we commemorate Human Rights Month, we should take maximum advantage of the mobilising effect of the different monthly themes by focusing our energies on the completion of the social compact and involving the people in changing their lives. The calls: Vuk’uzenzele! – wake up and do something for yourself – and Masibambisane! – let’s hold each other’s hands – should be our guiding stars.
*Pakati is the executive mayor of the Buffalo City metropolitan municipality and chairperson of the South African Cities Network Council.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL and Independent Media.