The Fish Stinks from the Head

The education crisis in South Africa is only one of the many crises in Government in the country.  Citizens have become so used to reading of the latest crisis that they have become inured to the situation.  If text books had not been distributed until eight months after the start of the school year in Germany, the Government would have fallen.  Education is one of the most important functions performed by Government in any country, and particularly so in a country like South Africa, where many of the downstream problems can be traced back to the very poor education of the mass of the people.  The fact that a significant proportion of the country’s Education Departments have shown conclusively that they are incapable of performing this important task must give cause for serious concern at all levels of society, from the child at school, receiving an inferior education and so being condemned by the Government to a life of continuing poverty, to the President, who has shown repeatedly his inability to manage a Government, resorting instead to ‘Second Transitions’ and blaming the ‘legacy of Apartheid’ for the failings.

It has become normal for crises to arise: the failure of Eskom to provide a secure and affordable supply of power, the failure of Spoornet to provide efficient long-distance transport to mines, forestry and industry, leading to overloading of the roads system and a failure of South Africa to benefit from the minerals boom of recent years, the failure of the Departments of Health to ensure that the Clinics have adequate stocks of even the most basic medications, the failure of the municipalities to pass an audit test that, in almost any other country would be viewed as the most basic requirement of responsibility of Government to the electorate or even, in some cases, to submit to the audit, the failure of the Police system to manage the honesty of its Commissioners, the failure of the Roads Agency to maintain and develop the excellent road system that the apartheid Government left behind, turning rather to handing toll road contracts at exorbitant cost to Party favourites.

All of this is happening at a time when the President is flitting around the world, doing deals that, in many cases, are not entirely clear.  Like his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, President Zuma seems to have abdicated his responsibility to manage the Government at home in order to devote his efforts to foreign relationships or, when he is actually in the country, to building his power base for re-election at Mangaung.  What is clear is that there is no management at the top.

The causes of the recurrent crises are clear. 

There is no insistence on adequate performance, never mind the good performance that South Africa desperately needs to grow internally and to remain a leader in Africa.  It is not possible to demand excellent performance from employees that are selected largely on the basis of carrying the Party Card.  Selecting management from a field of candidates who are, by definition, political animals, is a sure blueprint for management mediocrity.  Failing to discipline and, if necessary, to punish those who do not perform is a guarantee that the incumbents of critical positions in the functioning of Government do not see good performance as an extremely important job requirement.  The shifting of dishonest Party members from the scene of their putative humiliation to another, frequently higher-paid, position can only encourage the view that brown-nosing the Party bosses is the one requirement for success in one’s career in Government.

There is no leadership by example at the top of Government.  Jacob Zuma must rank close after Robert Mugabe as the most criticised leader of a country.  It would be a sensation in Germany if even an indirect aspersion were to be made on Angelika Merkel’s honesty or integrity, yet Jacob Zuma is known, more than for his leadership qualities, by the fact that he manoeuvred past several criminal charges immediately before ascending to the Presidency, and by the fact that both he and his family members are constantly involved in the sort of allegations of corruption that would bring down any Government that considered itself to be responsible to the People.  There is no indication in any communication from the Presidency that the President is either willing or able to take quick and firm corrective action in the event of any incompetence or corruption within the Government. 

There is a reliance on excuses and on misdirecting explanations.  In an interview after his State of the Nation address to Parliament in 2011, President Zuma gave a list of the failings of the ANC Government in its years at the helm of the nation.  He mentioned failure after failure, adding that the Government was taking steps to correct them, but, remarkably, he did not once apologise to the electorate for these failings of his Government and his Party.  On the contrary, during the National Policy Conference of the ANC, he went to great lengths to explain how the legacy of the past had now produced a situation in which the poor and the deprived, a number that has grown dramatically since the AN took power, must wait a further fifty years while the ANC tries new ways to do the job that any competent Government in a civilised country would see as everyday work.

While the country is slipping, in its ability to generate jobs, to attract foreign investment, in its leadership of Africa, and in its ability to play a meaningful part in the modern world, the ANC panders ever more to the demands of the South African Communist Party, which seeks to recreate a system that has been proven convincingly to be both destructive of democracy and incapable of satisfying the needs of the citizens, and COSATU, an organisation that has stated that the risks taken by entrepreneurs in creating employment and wealth for the people, are of little account.

The Dutch have a saying:  The fish stinks from the head.  Any competent Management Consultant will know that when an organisation is not performing to its level of capability, the first place to take corrective action is at leadership level.  If an employee is not performing, it is most likely that that employees supervisor is at least equally at fault, either for not managing that employee, or for failing to provide the leadership, the monitoring, control, discipline and corrective action to ensure that the employee does the best job of which he or she is capable.  If the supervisor is not performing, that supervisor’s manager is most likely also to blame.  And so it goes up the line to the man at the top.  In a situation in which the man responsible for delivering the textbooks to the schools in Limpopo fails to do that job, particularly where the education system has already been under close scrutiny and criticism for its failure to perform effectively, the Minister of Education must be held responsible.  Where that Minister is arrogant enough to deny any responsibility, the President, the man who appointed her to that most important position, must accept responsibility for the failure of his management.  If he is not capable of ensuring that the most high-profile jobs in his administration are performed adequately, there must surely be doubt about his capability to lead the Nation to the success it is capable of achieving.  South Africa can not afford politicians of the calibre of Mr Zuma or of most of the Ministers who hold their posts not because they are capable of doing the job, but because their appointment is designed to ensure the re-election of the President.

The fish stinks from the head.