The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted much of our momentum on many of the development indicators in our country and city. It is a devastating and complex pandemic due to the fact that the virus is novel, has no cure, and until recently, we had no vaccine. There is no country that is untouched. The pandemic’s devastating effects on the economy are far greater than the global economic crisis of 2007/8.
- More than 2 million jobs have been lost
- More than 48000 people have died nationally and globally, the number stands at 3m+.
- More than 2900 people have died in our City
- According to the ILO, 8.8% of working hours have been lost in 2020, an equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs – approximately four times higher than the losses suffered during the recent global economic
- The ILO also estimates that $3.7 trillion or 4% of global GDP has been lost.
These estimates are not mere numbers. These are real lives and livelihoods. In our case in South Africa, and indeed in our City, the pandemic served to remind us about the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty, and inequality. Certainly, these have deepened under Covid-19 and our government has been responding comprehensively to the crisis, including with a national economic recovery plan.
The fundamental challenge with our society is that we several structural crises that induce and reinforce the triple challenges. Whereas the ANC-led government has made progress on improving the quality of lives of people since 1994 – and the Quality Life Surveys and some reports from the Institute of Race Relations attest to this fact – we remain with stubborn structural crises that we cannot ignore.
The problem of unemployment is caused by among other things; skewed property relations, low rates of savings, high levels of concentration, shifting investments from productive sectors to the services industries (the so-called investment trust), spatial inequality, and a bit of the skill challenge on the basis of advances in technology.
The fact that South Africa is a noisy democratic republic, should not distract us from the good work that has been done to mitigate against the worst economic and health effects of the pandemic.
Given our historical challenges as outlined above, we need to see the pandemic as a grand opportunity for us not only to save lives and livelihoods; but to reset the economy and accelerate economic and social infrastructure programs in order to realize radical change! Essentially, we must realize the radical socio-economic transformation that was chosen as a major priority at the 54th National Conference in NASREC.
In the meantime, ANC members and leaders must continue to encourage people to wash hands, wear masks and keep social distance and when the vaccine arrives in our areas of the dwelling, we must lead our communities in the vaccination program.
Most of the debate about the science and governance of the pandemic will be settled once the dust settles. Some of those opposed to the measures of the ANC have loudhailers, large audiences, and powerful platforms but, it does not make them right. They parade opinion and prejudices as if it is serious insights and analysis. The fact is; the knowledge base is still evolving just as much as the virus evolves.
It is not a crime to sit out some intellectual engagements. In fact, it is the demand of modern-day scholarship that you should receive more information than you provide. Pretending to be an expert on matters you possess zero knowledge in, is dishonest. We must guard against such tendencies amongst our ranks.
As we navigate the new environment and its developing knowledge, we must invest in the empowerment of our cadres to analyze and dissect the very complex and emerging realms of thought and science that seek to respond and shape the new world order.
Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the interrelationship between the economy and public health in the same way between lives and livelihoods. Public health emerges as a key priority that should be reflected as such within the next phase of the GDS as we review it. Acknowledging that the future may include a range of other shocks, with Covid-19 potentially being just the first of many, also raises the need for the City to prioritise steps through which to grow and foster resilience, at the level of the CoJ as an institution, and at the level of individuals, communities and the city itself. Critically, responses to shocks should also be planned for at the provincial and GCR level.
On the question of inequality, the Covid-19 crisis has allowed us to see the risks in continuing to neglect spatial equity in terms of getting essential infrastructure services such as water, sanitation, electricity, refuse collection to dense informal settlements within the City. There is no longer a possibility of thinking that this continued inequality can be contained geographically. In times of crisis, the interdependencies between affluent and poor communities have been made visible.
Covid-19 has heightened the vulnerability of women and children in Johannesburg’s households. It has also brought into focus the vulnerability of many in abusive homes. GBV is an enormous problem in our society and lockdown has created fewer options for women who need assistance. As has been highlighted with Covid-19, public health and the economy are tightly interconnected. As we have seen in the current Covid-19 crisis, the ability to adequately service these settlements with adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene services has prevented households in these areas from taking the required safety measures to minimize the risk of contagion.
Covid-19 had not fatally undermined Johannesburg’s industrial and commercial capabilities. Nonetheless, numerous challenges conspired to ensure that Johannesburg-based businesses remained uncompetitive in a world in which digitisation, automation, and globalisation were making it possible for firms right across the world.
Comrades, in times of uncertainty and change, informed, flexible, innovative, forward-looking governance, open to continuous learning, is needed to develop our city. Currently, global public health problems, the impacts of climate change, and inequalities are increasing the vulnerability of cities. Many cities are home to youth booms or vulnerable aging populations and many are experiencing unprecedented migration flows as a consequence of the democratic transition. Profound transformations will be required in the pattern of production and consumption, methods of public participation, and involvement of citizens in public policy if all these challenges are to be faced. New urban governance will depend on capacity-building for all spheres of government, particularly municipal authorities.
This Lekgotla must immerse itself in mapping the future of Johannesburg; it must answer the question of what are the actions we should take to build a city of our dreams; we know must re-emphasize that focus should be more on what unites us than what divides us.
All this is because scholarship and research have taught us that confidence in political parties fluctuates considerably. Improvements occur in political parties when there is relative cohesion within, and confidence dips when parties are unstable and display internal fractures which spill over into open conflict.
But confidence is generally low, and so is trust. A lack of trust and confidence in political parties in particular, and in institutions of government in general, drives voter turnout. Voter turnout has been in steady decline. Therefore, if branches are basic units for political activism then wards are basic units for nurturing civic participation. We must then:
- Improve vote numbers’ by energizing our voter base
- Use wards as a comprehensive networked system of civic education practices
- Develop a clear civic education curriculum
- Define citizen outcomes and targets
- Conduct outreach
- make use of technology to promote civic education
Comrades; in closing the PEC Lekgotla on the 7th February 2021; The Chairperson of the Province, comrade David Makhura said:
“We must accept that as a province, we are drifting towards a dangerous cliff by becoming inward-looking and self-absorbed in senseless internal battles. These destructive, disruptive and debilitating internal battles have nothing to do with the plight of our people and the cause of the revolution.
Nothing to do with the interests of the working class and the poor. Nothing to do with the well-being of millions of women suffering from patriarchy and other manifestations such as gender-based violence and femicide. Nothing to do with the aspirations of the millions of unemployed young people who have been failed by our economy and the global neo-liberal paradigm. Nothing to do with millions who are victims.
Nothing to do with Black companies, women-owned businesses, and township entrepreneurs struggling to gain access into the mainstream of the economy. Nothing to do with members of the LGBTIQ who are victimized and oppressed. These battles have nothing with making Gauteng the model province for a beautiful combination of genuine radical socioeconomic transformation, sustained clean governance, ethical and accountable leadership.
We have previously called upon all of us to heed the lessons of history by ensuring that our movement and our province is not destroyed through a toxic combination and confluence of three factors:
- Failure to fundamentally transform society so that economic opportunities and ownership of assets is not limited to the few;
- Rampant predatory corruption that feeds the consumptive lifestyles of comprador bourgeoisie and the hired lumpenproletariat;
- Debilitating factionalism were plotting against one another is the predominant mode of political discourse and the survival of the fittest as the raison d’etre of the party or movement.
Some of the world’s best progressive movements and transformative parties have fallen victim to one or all of these destructive tendencies and they got destroyed, leaving the system they sought to destroy intact and untransformed. These are the risk facing every movement that is genuinely about change.”
Comrade leadership, all this is true for Johannesburg. As we deliberate in this Lekgotla we must be alive to the task ahead and keep uppermost in our minds that our people depend on us.
I wish the REC Lekgotla successful deliberations.