Joel Netshitenzhe
Article: Letter from Tshwane
28 July 2000
Sense of perspective about challenges
What is
this government about? What is this country about?
These
are among the questions that engaged the minds of
Directors-General at the first module of the Presidential
Strategic Leadership Development Programme earlier
this week.
Many had
not sat in front of a lecturer in a long time, and
such courses can be taxing to one’s concentration.
As such,
for some, the most exciting moments would be during
breaks, when we could accost the Police Commissioner
or Health DG to debate issues that have recently
dominated the media agenda.
‘Why
are you opening us up to media attack on police
statistics’, colleagues would ask Commissioner
Selebi. And the more you debated the advisability
of publishing figures which include a mugging in
a taxi as a cash-in-transit heist, or a handbag
snatched in a bank as a bank robbery, the more this
drifted towards a chicken-and-egg paradox: should
one correct statistics first before publishing,
or should one publish while correcting!
In a democracy,
there will be as many views as there are trade-offs
on the pros and cons. By no stretch of the imagination
can a choice on the matter be construed as being
about commitment or otherwise to freedom of speech.
The process of correcting SAPS statistics started
last Monday, and it should be completed within six
months. Whether better or worse, what emerges should
give us a more reliable base to plan targeted interventions.
Tshwane
is abuzz with such self-reflection, influenced in
part by recent media discourse. Depending on the
analyst, portends of doom can become the stock-in-trade.
Consequently, a sense of perspective starts to evaporate.
And so,
what is this government about? What is this country
about?
A review
of government programmes reveals that the projects
on basic amenities have been proceeding apace. From
a 1998 base of about 2.3-million homes connected
since 1994, today 3-million have electricity. It
is the same for water (3m to 5.5m people connected);
telephone lines (1.5m to 2m), housing (0.6m to that
magic 1m mark) and so on.
In its
latest data, the Bureau for Market Research (BMR)
reports that the income gap between the poorest
20% and richest 10% of South Africans has closed
from 1:45 in 1991 to 1:22 in 1999.
But, are
these programmes impacting in an integrated way
on people’s conditions of life? Are public
managers translating policy into action plans with
the necessary urgency – and why should millions
of Rand from the Budget go unspent! Have we mastered
the intricacies of government regulations –
and why did the Command Centre on flood relief take
longer than desired to become fully operational!
Many such questions, including debate on the 13th
International AIDS Conference.
Indeed,
what is this country about?
We need
to examine the essence of issues without the emotion
of media glitz and the enticement of powerful interest
groups. We should see beyond condemnations of government
that are as easily made in front of an AIDS Conference
gallery as they are amended. And there are income
projections by some companies, made on the basis
of assumptions about Africa’s willingness to
buy expensive drugs, even if it meant massive foreign
debt.
All this
speaks to resilience in the face of pressure. It
is about distilling the essence: a Conference that
succeeded to focus on the reality facing developing
countries, including drug prices, the environment
of poverty, progress in the science rather than
narrowly on the emotion of mother-to-child transmission,
issues of vaccine research and so on.
The attempt
at getting President Thabo Mbeki to repeat after
an elite was as cheap as the ensuing condemnation
which found resonance in some media.
But this
will not stop the planned discussion between government
and scientists on the promising results of recent
tests on drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission.
It will not stop the campaign by partners in the
SA National AIDS Council asserting that there is
hope if we change lifestyles and care for the affected.
It will
not subtract from statistics suggesting that the
infection rate in SA may be stabilising. Neither
will it change the fact that most developed countries,
including the recent G8 Summit, have come to appreciate
the African context to the pandemic, and are calling
for a fight against HIV/AIDS within the milieu of
other killer diseases and the conditions of poverty
that encourage its spread.
There
is no doubt that government and partners in the
fight against HIV/AIDS can do much better. We should
improve our efforts without losing a sense of what
we are about as a government and as a country.
And we
wilt in the face of pressure at our own peril –
a betrayal of not only ourselves, but of those who
seek the best for humanity.
Joel Netshitenzhe
CEO, Government Communications (GCIS)
Published in Independent Newspapers
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