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Administration

The Zuma

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The Zuma

Administration

Critical Challenges

Edited by Kwandiwe Kondlo & Mashupye H Maserumule

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Published by HSRC Press

Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

www.hsrcpress.ac.za

First published 2010

ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2316-5

ISBN (pdf) 978-0-7969-2317-2

ISBN (epub) 978-0-7969-2318-9

© 2010 Human Sciences Research Council

Copyedited by Jacquie Withers

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Contents

Preface v

Abbreviations and acronyms vii

1 Introduction: political and governance challenges 1

Kwandiwe Kondlo

2 Consolidating a developmental state agenda: a governance challenge 15

Mashupye H Maserumule

3 Rural development under a ‘developmental state’:

analysing the policy shift on agrarian transformation in South Africa 51

Gilingwe Mayende

4 Public service delivery issues in question 77

Modimowabarwa H Kanyane

5 Governmental relations in a maturing South African democracy 95

David M Mello

6 Socio-economic development and poverty reduction in South Africa 107

Polly Mashigo

Contributors 145

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| vii

This book examines the challenges accompanying the transformation of the political economy

and society of South Africa since 1994 – which now present challenges and prospects for the new

administration that took office in May 2009 under the leadership of Jacob Zuma. The book provides

interpretation, critique and fresh perspectives on political and administrative dynamics since the birth

of democracy in 1994, to the era of the Mbeki administration (1999–2008), and then to the transition

to the Zuma administration. That transition was led by the now deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe,

who provided ‘stop-gap’ presidency from September 2008 until the new president, Zuma, was sworn

into office in May 2009.

The Mbeki administration, which did not run its full term due to the ‘recalling’ of the president by

the governing party, provides an important context for the debates on the developmental state,

governance, service delivery and intergovernmental co-operation covered in the various chapters.

Chapter 1 introduces and contextualises the analysis and discussions advanced in the other chapters

of the volume. It begins by examining macro-political and governance challenges facing young

democracies in the world and narrows down to an analysis of the situation in southern and South

Africa. The challenges facing the Zuma administration are therefore located in a wider international

and continental context.

The challenges of building a developmental state in South Africa and delivering on the promise of land

reform, agrarian transformation and rural development, are all located within the international and

continental context of challenges facing democracy and state capacity to deliver public goods (the

latter including, for example, safety and security, employment opportunities, housing, the rule of law,

healthcare and so on). These challenges are amplified in the sections that deal with service delivery,

intergovernmental relations and poverty reduction. The issue of incoherence between traditional,

informal and formal institutions as well as the constraints presented by this to the overall nation￾building project are carefully explored and examined.

To write a book that deals with challenges and prospects for the Zuma administration is a difficult

enterprise not only because of the vastness and complexity of the subject but also because of the

difficulties in finding the right register with which to convey the complexity; there are diverse issues to

cover, some of which may not yet be ripe for scholarly synopsis. The book necessarily leaves out many

important topics, including the very important historical questions of nation state formation, and how

the state has worked to define the meaning of being ‘South African’ and in so doing constructed an

identity for itself. Nevertheless, the book focuses on a few selected topics, which are key to the mandate

and agenda of the new administration. Prominent among them are the issues of the developmental

state, rural development, socio-economic development, and service delivery.

As captured by Mark Gevisser in an essay commissioned for the Mail & Guardian (19 December 2008–8

January 2009), some of the fundamental questions about the challenges of the Zuma administration

that dominate in the public intellectual discourse, in this interesting era in the history of South Africa,

are as follows: how will the Zuma administration ensure continuity while at the same time effecting

‘some sharp and much-needed changes’ in the country’s political, economic, social and public

administration landscape? Will the Zuma administration be able to ‘steer economic policy through

the straits of an international economic crisis while still meeting the needs of an increasingly expectant’

Preface

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viii |

populace? These questions necessitate rigorous intellectual engagement. It is in this context that it

was deemed necessary to put together multidisciplinary perspectives – in the form of this volume – to

deal with some of the questions raised as part of the public debate on the challenges facing the Zuma

administration.

The book projects views into the future and explores the nature and scope of both the challenges and

the prospects for the Zuma administration, with the intention of enhancing the intellectual depth and

value of the debates on the subject. This collection of different perspectives, seeks to stir up debate; it is

not concerned with building consensus, but rather with stimulating thinking, challenging entrenched

views and perceptions and breaking new ground.

A note on government departments

The advent of the Zuma administration ushered in new and renamed government ministries and

departments, as follows:

Former New

Department of Agriculture Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Department of Land Afairs Department of Rural Development and Land Reform

Department of Provincial and Local Government Department of Cooperative Governance and

Traditional Afairs

Department of Housing Department of Human Settlement

Department of Water Afairs and Forestry Department of Water and Environmental Afairs

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| ix

ANC African National Congress

ANCWL African National Congress Women’s League

ANCYL African National Congress Youth League

ASD alternative service delivery

ASGISA Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa

BEE black economic empowerment

C10 African Committee of 10

CBO community-based organisation

COPE Congress of the People

COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions

DFI development funding institution

DLA Department of Land Affairs

DoA Department of Agriculture

DPW Department of Public Works

DTI Department of Trade and Industry

EPWP Extended Public Works Programme

GDP gross domestic product

GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy

GFOA Government Finance Officers Association

IDP Integrated Development Planning

IMF International Monetary Fund

ISRDP Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme

LRAD Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development

MDG Millennium Development Goal

MEC Member of the Executive Council

MINMEC [Committee of] Ministers and Members of the Executive Council

MPCC multi-purpose community centre

NDR national democratic revolution

NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development

NGO non-governmental organisation

PALAMA Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy

PFMA Public Finance Management Act

PPP public–private partnership

PSC Public Service Commission

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

SACP South African Communist Party

SAMDI South African Management Development Institute

SMME small, medium and micro enterprise

SSDM shared service delivery model

UN United Nations

US United States

USA United States of America

YCL Young Communist League

Abbreviations and acronyms

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| 1

Kwandiwe Kondlo

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: political and

governance challenges

Is the new administration in a catch-22 situation?

The administration of Jacob Zuma came to power in May 2009, following the victory of the African

National Congress (ANC) in the fourth democratic elections in South Africa. It could be argued that

something amounting to a catch-22 situation may soon face the Zuma administration in more direct

ways than was the case for previous administrations. This will arise from the challenge of balancing

legitimacy with effectiveness in the governance of the country. The popular expectations and demands

for improved delivery on the part of the state are a demand for effectiveness; without effectiveness,

the legitimacy of the Zuma administration stands to decline. With declining legitimacy, the new

administration will further lose effectiveness; and so on in a downward spiral. The character of this

challenge to the Zuma administration cannot be divorced from the political character of Zuma’s victory.

From the ‘Polokwane moment’ (Fikeni 2009) to the 22 April 2009 elections and to the Union Buildings,

the political character of Zuma’s victory and the long-term impact it is likely to have in the deepening

of democracy in South Africa, continues to generate debate. It embodies an ‘uncertain hope’, as it both

unsettles and inspires the will of a divided polity. The political victory of Zuma is what Critchley (2006),

quoting Derrida, would term a messianic a priori; it is a promise to the masses of the poor, even if it

never defined itself as such. The popular expectation that ‘a new transition and change’ is on the cards

invokes the performative dimension of the ‘promise’ embedded in Zuma’s political victory, especially

after 15 years of disappointed popular expectations. Change or transition, though, is usually invaded

by that which it is not – in the same way that the invasion of ‘being’ by ‘non-being’ occurs in the coming

into ‘being’ (Kierkegaard 2009). Yet there is hope even beyond the promise of utopia.

At the heart of Zuma’s victory is the promise of and hope for improved service delivery to the masses of

the poor; the hope to have the voices of ordinary people heard in more meaningful ways than before

in the governance of the country; and the hope for pro-poor economic policy as implied by the idea

of a developmental state. Added to this is the hope of getting the wheels of government to move

faster, coherently and effectively. Yet the challenge of the institutional capacity of the state and what

it will take to improve it so that it delivers on the electoral promises of the ANC, stands as an obstacle

to the ‘delivery of public goods’; perhaps it is the necessary antidote to messianic expectations of

revolutionary change engendered by the rhetoric of the ruling party.

The catch-22 situation of the Zuma administration is typical of the situation in young democracies.

‘Lacking legitimacy they cannot become effective; lacking effectiveness they cannot develop

legitimacy’ (Huntington 1993: 258; see also Kapstein & Converse 2008). In essence, this attests to the

challenges of institutional capacity and organisation. Southall describes the challenges in the case of

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2 | The Zuma administration: critical challenges

South Africa as an instance of deficit in ‘ideational capacity’ (Southall 2007: 19), that is, the degree to

which the embeddedness and legitimacy of the state in state institutions, political practices and ideas

of individual members of society are eroded or lacking.

State institutional capacity and performance are critical to building and enhancing the credibility

and legitimacy of the state. In South Africa the challenge arises, first, at policy level. The fact that

the gap between the time of policy formulation and that of actual implementation is vast, and that

the disjuncture between the ‘policy talk and policy action’ is of great magnitude, creates a state of

‘non-simultaneous simultaneity’ (Benhabib 1994: 129; Block 1973), where the policy superstructures

and practices they engender are non-synchronous and thus constitute a failing transformative praxis.

Policy pronouncements and formulations, though good on paper, do not find simultaneous expression

in the real practices of governance. This is a key governance challenge for the Zuma administration.

As the gap between ‘knowing and doing’ persists and becomes more difficult to bridge, corruption,

which has now become so pervasive in the South African polity, grows into a permanent underworld

of democracy. Corruption is the ‘antithesis of good governance’ and influences perceptions of the

general citizenry about the legitimacy of the government (Camerer 1997). If these kinds of inadequacies

continue, it is hard to see how rhetorical claims of a developmental state and the promises to deliver on

land reform, agrarian transformation and rural development – issues that Chapters 2 and 3 examine in

detail – will be realised in practice. Reconfiguring Cabinet and establishing a new planning ministry in

the Presidency, as already done by the Zuma administration, are all good signs but they do not amount

to ‘effective actions’. It is not enough to have good intentions; it only makes material difference to

‘mean well and also act well’.

Sevice delivery is clearly the challenge of the Zuma administration. Getting government departments

to function in an integrated and coherent way is going to be nothing less than a nightmare for the

Zuma administration, because the problem is arguably not one of structures only but also of ethos

and the integrity of state institutions. For this reason, the volume includes a focus on public service

delivery issues for the Zuma administration (Chapter 4); governmental relations in a maturing South

African democracy (Chapter 5); and socio-economic development and poverty reduction in South

Africa (Chapter 6).

Issues of perceptions and the appropriateness of institutional models, even though not adequately

covered in the book, are very important. The questions in this regard are as follows: are existing state

institutional models appropriate to deliver on their mandates and do they create room for meaningful

citizen participation? Are the institutions of the state perceived to be serving all citizens, irrespective of

party political stripes and orientation, or are they perceived as favouring, even if inadvertently, special

interest groups and constituencies so as to help reinvent and reproduce the power and hegemonic

project of the ruling party? The deficit in South Africa’s democracy, a persistent political and governance

challenge of previous democratic administrations, is inadequate delivery of material improvements in

the lives of the majority of citizens. This deficit is exacerbated by inadequacies in responding to the

preferences of citizens at grassroots level, due to the gap that has developed between those who can

make their voices heard and those who cannot (except under situations of noticeable mass protest).

The degree of interaction between the government and citizens, the level of access to decision￾makers and decision-making by citizens at grassroots level, especially those outside urban centres, is

a challenge to the Zuma administration.

Perhaps there is a need, at this point, to frame the wider theoretical and political context. Among

the key questions one needs to ask, as a starting point, is the following: what are the key political

and governance challenges facing democracies in the world today? The question is pertinent to a

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Introduction: political and governance challenges | 3

young democracy like South Africa in this day and age, as there are growing concerns, worldwide,

about the fate of the world’s young democracies (Kapstein & Converse 2008). In the light of the

macro-perspectives that responses to this question may yield, a follow-up question could be: what

are the political and governance challenges facing democracy in Africa, and South Africa in particular?

This will then provide a proper perspective and the necessary context for examining, debating and

understanding the political and governance challenges facing the Zuma administration.

The questions raised above are part philosophical, part socio-historical and part political, and therefore

require an analysis that traverses international, continental and South African contexts. This is difficult

to achieve in a comprehensive way, especially in one small volume such as this. As the title of the book

indicates, the challenges examined in the book are on selected issues that are key to the ANC’s agenda

as indicated in both its 2009 election manifesto (ANC 2009) and in the State of the Nation address by

President Zuma on 4 June 2009 (Zuma 2009). The chapters cover selected but critically important

issues such as the developmental state; land, agrarian reform and rural development; service delivery;

governmental relations; and socio-economic development and poverty reduction. The present chapter

broadly sketches the political and governance challenges faced by democracies in today’s world and

shows how the challenges they imply touch on perennial questions running through the ‘veins’ of

South Africa’s democracy.

Democratic performance and state institutional capacity

State institutional capacity refers to the availability of ‘various necessary inputs and appropriate

skills’ for operationalising state programmes (Chirawu 2004: 234), in order to deliver valuable ‘public

goods’, which citizens have the right to expect from a legitimate state (Rotberg & Gisselquist 2008).

State institutional capacity also means the manner in which ‘democratic institutions function’ as well

as the extent to which effective citizen participation and ‘control over policy’ are constitutive of the

institutional capacity of the state (Huntington 1993: 9). The issue of the credibility, legitimacy and

performance of state institutions is one of the key challenges faced by democracies all over the world

today. The challenge is manifested in different forms, depending on the particular time and context

of the democracy in question, but is a common variable in the package of challenges in the entire

democratic world.

The challenge in our days is not so much opposition to multi-party liberal democracy but rather the

creation of responsive democratic states whose institutions function well – both in the ‘normative’ and

administrative senses – and conduct activities and deliver ‘public goods’ according to the wishes of the

citizenry (Back & Hadenius 2008; Huntington 1993). Worldwide, opposition to multi-party democracy

has been on the decline, especially after 1989, the period celebrated by political philosopher, Francis

Fukuyama, as having marked the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama 1992) and the establishment of Western

liberal democracy as universal. Of course, Fukuyama was strongly criticised by scholars from the ‘Left’

who argued that what happened to the countries in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, ‘owed more to

their histories than to the ideology’ that they professed (Hill 1992: 8). A new configuration of global

power at the beginning of the 21st century following the rise of China and India, and the return to power

of Japan and Russia, ‘ended’ Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’. By all indications, we are now witnessing ‘the

return of great power nationalism’ (Kagan 2008: 10). The incidence of the global economic ‘meltdown’

seems to give impetus to the idea of the ‘return of the state’. This is shown by the proliferation of state

interventions in the economy, as is the case in ‘advanced’ democracies, including the USA. This situation

has sparked new claims – about the ‘return of history’ and the ‘end of dreams’ (Kagan 2008).

Yet the return of history and the end of dreams brings with it too the dashing of hopes. A new era

of ‘global convergence’, which was signalled by the embracing of democracy in former communist

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4 | The Zuma administration: critical challenges

states, was regarded as marking the birth of new hope and a renewal of the liberal democratic project.

The ‘third wave’ of democracy (Huntington 1993), post-1990, confirmed this – it was dominated by

insistence on the ‘minimalist state’, and less intervention in the free market. With the recent return

of history, liberal democracy and free market fundamentalism seem to be going through a period of

stress. By 2008, it was estimated that almost half of the world’s most recent democracies were either

struggling to consolidate or reverting to authoritarianism (Kapstein & Converse 2008). This began in

the form of ‘power grabs’ by leaders in such countries as Bolivia, Georgia, Russia and Venezuela and

extended further to situations such as were found in Fiji (2006), Thailand (2006) and Bangladesh (2007),

where coups d’état occurred (Kapstein & Converse 2008). In South Africa there is still hope for the

survival of democracy. Yet South Africa seems to be looking ‘East’ for solutions; hence, in South Africa

we hear debate about the developmental state and, lately, nationalisation of the mining sector of the

economy, and the question is: why?

In reality, history never ‘ended’, hence it has not ‘returned’. The concepts are only good as markers

of the dynamics of political economy and historical change. Perhaps one important issue, now that

democracy as a political system is hardly contested, is the disappointment of the hopes of the poor

majority in many democratic states, an issue that raises questions about the correlation between

democracy and the capacity of democratic states to deliver. Back and Hadenius (2008) argue

convincingly that ‘the global tendency over recent decades has been towards a growing gap’ (2008:

1) between democratisation and the administrative capacity of the state. This is but one aspect of

the institutional capacity of the state. By the state’s administrative capacity, Back and Hadenius are

referring to the existence of a rational bureaucracy geared towards impartiality, professionalism and

accountability (Back & Hadenius 2008; Brynard & De Coning 2007).

Democratic institutions are fully established in many democratic states but a broad array of societal

resources required to ensure control and participation from below are lacking. Paul Ginsborg (2008), in

his pioneering work Democracy: Crisis and Renewal, demonstrates this point by examining democracies

in the European Union, where institutions are established but float above the people whom they are

meant to serve. In his critical assessment, he argues that:

in 1989 liberal democracy triumphed unqualifiedly over its now unpresentable

opponent. But at the moment of its global victory, many of its basic practices have

been found wanting and many of its proudest boasts proved unfounded. Today liberal

democracy is highly vulnerable. To protect it adequately, there is urgent need for

theoretical discussion and practical innovation. (Ginsborg 2008: 12)

De Sousa Santos and Avritzer (2007: ixii) describe the challenge as that of the ‘democratization of

democracy’, which not only means widening the social basis of democracy and ensuring its resonance

with the aspirations of the majority of citizens; but also, critically, how new complementarities or

articulations between participatory democracy and representative democracy are identified and

enhanced in democratic practice.

The institutional capacity of the state is more than a matter of appropriate skills. It involves the

orientation of governance; how governance comes across and is felt by ordinary citizens; citizen

participation; and ‘a rational bureaucracy’, which is effective and efficient in the delivery of public

goods. The institutional capacity of the democratic state is therefore crucial to democratic performance.

In the context of neo-liberal democracy, the corresponding types of democratic institutions have only

ensured the formalism of democratic processes without delivering the concrete, material dividends of

democracy to the majority. This situation, according to Van Beek, in East Germany, Poland and South

Africa, has led to the rising phenomenon of ‘dissatisfied democrats’; a situation where the support for

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Introduction: political and governance challenges | 5

democracy as an ideal is countervailed by the negative evaluation of how it works on the ground (Van

Beek 2006).

There is an emerging view that in the case of the USA the institutional capacity of the state has been

blunted and compromised by ‘big business’ (Reich 2009). This brings in another perspective about

inhibitors and enablers to the institutional capacity of states. These are derived from their location

in the international context. This is a factor that, according to Van Beek, makes ‘sound economic

policies and policy implementation alone not enough to ensure satisfactory performance’ (2006: 29).

The incentives provided by the existing structure of the global political economy are a crucial factor

without which democracies may stand or fall; and hence Kapstein and Converse correctly argue that

‘the international environment plays a more important role than is commonly appreciated’ (2008: xvi).

In other words, the institutional capacity of the state and the critical role played by institutions in a

polity – something of the essence of governance – are products of both endogenous and exogenous

factors, hence the importance of political leadership.

In the case of emerging democracies the situation is even more challenging. Added to these factors

are the different legacies bequeathed to emerging democracies by pre-transitional circumstances. The

‘initial conditions’ (Kapstein & Converse 2008) are critical to subsequent democratic performance (Van

Beek 2006). Hence, the institutional capacity of the democratic state – enabled and augmented by a

self-organising civil society, independent of the state and its political parties – is vital in addressing the

challenges. Heller and Isaac, referring to the experience of India, also indicate that ‘a free and lively civil

society makes the state and its agents more accountable by guaranteeing that consultation takes place

not just through electoral representation (periodic mandates) but also through constant feedback and

negotiations’ (2007: 408). They conclude that the institutional capacity of the state is central to the

effectiveness of democracy.

These issues also apply, though differently, to the situation in Africa. I say ‘differently’ in the African

context because of the legacy of colonialism on the continent and its differential impact on the cultures

of its people. Even today there is still reference to Francophone and Anglophone parts of Africa. Most

importantly, there is the ‘unique’ southern African context. Former liberation movements such as

Frelimo (Mozambique), SWAPO (Namibia), MPLA (Angola), ZANU (Zimbabwe) and the ANC (South

Africa), even though still in power, seem to have come to preside over a gradually dying promise

of what they were once thought to epitomise (Saul 2008). Olowu and Mukwena (2004) explain the

southern African context – the immediate context of the South African democratisation project, in

other words, the context closest to and most definitive of the Zuma administration – as not only

one where the continent’s middle-income countries are concentrated, but also where ‘the project of

permanent white settler communities’ has meant that ‘governance regimes’ legitimise the inequalities

associated with the colonial system (Olowu & Mukwena 2004: 7). They argue that it is not surprising

that in southern Africa there is serious debate on issues such as the redistribution of land. Chapter 3

of this volume, in which Mayende analyses the latest policy shift on agrarian transformation in South

Africa, hits the very nerve of this issue to show the constraints and possibilities presented to the Zuma

administration in the areas of land reform, agrarian transformation and rural development.

At the heart of Africa’s challenges to democratic consolidation is the problem of fragmented institutions

(Berman et al. 2004). In part due to the manner in which the post-colonial African state was formed,

formal and informal institutions have not evolved in a coherent manner. Formal institutions (state

sponsored, mostly inherited from colonialism), traditional institutions and informal institutions, based

on societal norms and often varying according to religion, ethnic identity and mode of production,

remain fragmented and incoherent despite over four decades of efforts at institution building (HSRC

& PSU 2009). The problem exists not only in other parts of the African continent, but also in South

Africa itself.

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