Next year, South Africans will go to the polls to vote in their 7th ever democratic election. A monumental milestone by all accounts. However, all these elections have had one thing in common, an ANC majority. The ANC (the African National Congress) was the strongest liberation movement against apartheid, made up of socialists, liberals and communists as well as peaceful and armed movements, all with one goal in mind, ending apartheid. They achieved this dream when in 1994 they elected Nelson Mandela in their first democratic election to be the first black President of South Africa. Noticeable improvements were quickly seen as the violence of the apartheid system collapsed and sanctions were lifted. The country really seemed to be heading in a positive direction. But after his resignation and a slew of scandals, the ANC is clearly not the positive force of change it once was. In its current form it is doing great damage to the country and here in this article I want to demonstrate some of the reasons as to how.
AIDS/ HIV
AIDS becoming a public health emergency isn’t unique to South Africa, nor are dangerous and ignorant views on HIV. But the sheer scale of the crisis, combined with the level of ignorance across society, especially from the government elected to protect its country from HIV and AIDS is horrifically abnormal.
South Africa’s issue with AIDS really got going in the mid 90s just as South Africa was transitioning to a new democracy. In 1990 the UN speculated that HIV/AIDS rates were only 1% in the country. But amidst the high economic growth and positive changes that came from the end of apartheid, outdated social views on the disease largely went ignored. People were already beginning to sound the alarm, but I don’t think anyone truly predicted how bad it would get or how poorly the ANC would respond.
Nelson Mandela, despite his great many positive attributes, had failed to adequately prepare his country for the coming health crisis, a deeply tragic mistake given his own son, Makgatho, would in 2005 die from AIDS. In 1999 the most famous anti-apartheid activist retired from politics, and had the respected Thabo Mbeki replace him.
Of course everyone knows Mandela, but who is Mbeki?
Thabo was the son of Govan Mbeki, a highly respected South African intellectual and freedom fighter, with his son Thabo quickly following in his footsteps. At lightning pace he rose through the ranks of the ANC’s liberation movement, becoming one of its key faces abroad with his signature pipe and captivating but measured way of talking. He swooned global leaders and ensured political, economic and military support for his movement, even while in exile and under great personal danger from the apartheid government. But his achievements don’t stop there, he later played a key role in negotiations with the Apartheid government. He helped ensure the peaceful transfer of power and protection of human rights in a new multiracial democracy. No small feat for a country rife with instability, extremism and racial tensions that could explode into war at any moment. Without a doubt a highly impressive figure, both on a personal and political level, it was easy to see why people were confident he would be a great leader of South Africa like his predecessor. But all these attributes simply would be of little use to him in confronting the most devastating health crisis and challenge of his Presidency because of one simple fact...
He did not believe AIDS, as scientists and everyone in their right mind understands it, existed.
Mbeki did not believe that HIV caused AIDS or that the primary spread of it was through sex (he often flip flopped between saying sex could and couldn’t transmit HIV). He was in frequent disputes about whether pregnant women could pass it on to their children, with or without medication (that point about medication becomes important later). He had somehow got it into his head that the “debate” on HIV/AIDS, which in reality was an overwhelming scientific consensus, was apart of a racist conspiracy that was ignoring the poor state of the economy and public health, the real cause of HIV/AIDS in his eyes.
Here are some of Mbekis most famous quotes regarding AIDS:
“Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It cant.”
Another time in Parliament he was asked by an opposition MP from the DA whether he thought that the current (now worse) crisis of sexual violence had contributed to the spread of HIV and whether he believed that HIV causes AIDS.
Mbeki proceeded to do what I can only describe as very poor waffle, saying:
"Others whose minds have been corrupted by the disease of racism, accuse us, the black people of South Africa as being, by virtue of our Africanness and skin colour, lazy, liars, foul-smelling, diseased, corrupt, violent, amoral, sexually depraved, animalistic, savage - and rapist".
He did not actually discuss the issue of AIDS directly, instead discussing the racist motives around such political attacks, all the while MPs shouted “AIDS denialist” at him.
Alluding the public bluster and political speak, a private letter leaked to the Washington post also revealed the Presidents insane views on HIV/Aids which read:
“Not long ago, in our own country, people were killed, tortured, imprisoned and prohibited from being quoted in private and in public because the established authority believed that their views were dangerous and discredited. We are now being asked to do precisely the same thing that the racist apartheid tyranny we opposed did, because, it is said, there exists a scientific view that is supported by the majority, against which dissent is prohibited... People who otherwise would fight very hard to defend the critically important rights of freedom of thought and speech occupy, with regard to the HIV-AIDS issue, the frontline in the campaign of intellectual intimidation and terrorism..”
These beliefs are concerning from any individual, but Mbeki wasn’t just any old conspiracy theorist posting concerning memes on facebook. He was the President of South Africa and highly respected. As talked about earlier he had played a massive role in liberating his country, millions of South Africans understandably trusted him, their earliest memories being ones of him fighting for them from abroad, their most cherished memories being of him liberating their country. He was trusted in South Africa and in a country with very poor education levels and lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDs his ideas were especially damaging.
To demonstrate just how bad education on the disease is, here are some myths around HIV/AIDs that were/ are common in South Africa:
Having sex with a virgin woman will cure you of AIDS.
This in particular caused the high rate of pregnant women with AIDS and led to a large rise in rape. There are several well known cases of men with HIV/AIDS raping children and even babies in maternity wards in an attempt to cure themselves of AIDS. In 2001 there were 21,000 reported cases of child rape, many of whom contracted HIV and died.
Sex doesn’t cause HIV/AIDS
Condoms do not help prevent HIV/AIDS
If you have a shower after having sex you can prevent contracting HIV/AIDS
Modern medicine doesn’t cure HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS doesn’t exist
In a particularly grim example of poor knowledge about the disease, future President of South Africa , Jacob Zuma, revealed during his rape trial that he did not wear a condom during the alleged rape, despite knowing the alleged victim had HIV. His reason for doing so was that as he took a shower after the incident, he was safe from contracting the virus (yes really, he’s that misinformed and he still managed to become President). He was found not guilty in court, but yet again more public damage was done in regards to AIDS in south Africa.
In a culture with such dangerous views, Mbeki could’ve been just the leader needed to cut through the misconceptions and educate people what were the real issues relating to this disease, averting tragedies like young girls and babies getting raped and his country having the largest death toll in the world.
Instead, through a toxic mix of poor views and poor policies, hundreds of thousands died.
The Mbeki response:
So we know Mbeki has dangerously ignorant views, that much is clear by his own words, but how did they play out in terms of policy?
The crisis response was slow from the start, health infrastructure was not updated in time to adequately respond, public education was extremely poor, with schools often having to do impromptu lessons themselves without government oversight, with no guarantee that they were effective or accurate. Is it really a surprise then when the local areas that are run by the ANC have some of the highest rates of HIV and AIDS?
The South African government often refused to cooperate with drug companies and clinics in providing medicine that would stop the diseases spread, causing shortages and huge spikes in prices. South Africa’s health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang argued the many drugs relating to prevention and spread were dangerous and a corrupt capitalist money making scheme and shouldn’t be taken.
In a particularly egregious example of poor medicine procurement, the South African government refused the donations of the drug nevirapine, a drug that prevents the spread of HIV from mother to child during pregnancies. As a result, thousands of babies died from AIDS, many who were born as a result of rape. South Africa achieved a disgracefully high level of transmission from mother to child of HIV (hovering around 70%) in comparison to other countries like Botswana and Namibia (theirs was only around 15%) despite their worse healthcare system.
Here is what Nkosi Johnson, a child born with HIV (as a result of his mother not being able to access/afford treatment) had to say about living with the disease and the government response:
“I am 11 years old and I have full-blown AIDS. I was born HIV-positive.
When I was two years old, I was living in a care centre for HIV/AIDS-infected people. My mommy was obviously also infected and could not afford to keep me because she was very scared that the community she lived in would find out that we were both infected and chase us away…
I hate having AIDS because I get very sick and I get very sad when I think of all the other children and babies that are sick with AIDS. I just wish that the government can start giving AZT [an antiretroviral medication] to pregnant HIV mothers to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies.” Full speech
Nkosi Johnson sadly passed away age 12, but only after raising hundreds of thousands for AIDS charities and getting awarded with the International Children’s peace Prize by Gorbachev himself.
A national mother to child transmition prevention programme didn’t even exist until 2002, and that only happened because of a court challenge from an AIDS charity. I have no doubt that it would take many more years for any such panel to be set up if not for the courts. How many more would’ve died?
But not just Nevirapine was shunned by the ANC leadership, Mbeki went on to call anti-viral drugs used to prevent AIDS as “Toxic”. Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was questioned on this absurd stance and didn’t respond, but instead asked for the radio presenter who questioned her beliefs to be fired. She refused to answer, because simply, she also doesn’t believe that HIV causes AIDS and that traditional medicine is better for both curing and preventing HIV/AIDs, going so far as to support a cocktail mix of alcohol and fruits as a proper form of medicine.
The effects of her anti-AIDS cocktail were as expected. They did not work. Nozipho Bhengu was a well known carrier of the disease, a figure in ANC circles, after beginning treatment with actual medical drugs she was persuaded by the health minister to stop taking them due to their dangerous side effects and that she should instead try a healthier diet and her weird cocktails. Tragically, the expected outcome occurred with Nozipho Bhengu dying of the disease shortly after. The health minster then refused to attend her funeral despite an invitation.
The ANC leadership had catastrophically failed to procure crucial drugs needed, as prices and demand skyrocketed, poor and mostly non-white South Africans, who couldn’t access it in public hospitals and clinics, were killed by a toxic mix of poverty and AIDS when they couldn’t afford the sky high drug costs on the private market. With every person who couldn’t afford treatment becoming more likely to spread it to someone else, only making the demand higher and public health situation worse.
Eventually, due to international pressure and a near civil war within the ANC and the mounting death toll, towards the late 2000s , the government began to change course but the consequences still remained.
In the year 2006, over 280,000, South Africans died of Aids. That’s higher than the combined number of French and Canadian soldiers killed in WW2, combined. That’s also more than the total of UK and Irish covid deaths combined.
As of 2019, HIV/AIDS prevalence among South African adults ages 15 to 49 by province are
KwaZulu-Natal: 27.0%
Mpumalanga: 22.8%
Free State: 25.5%
North West: 22.7%
Gauteng: 17.6%
Eastern Cape: 25.2%
Limpopo: 17.2%
Northern Cape: 13.9%
Western Cape: 12.6% (again noting that the province not run by the ANC has the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS)
In short, the ANC leaderships denial of the key components of the disease, failure to procure drugs to prevent the spread, failure to educate the public and dispel myths about the disease and failure to act quickly resulted in South Africa becoming a hotbed of HIV and AIDS.
It is impossible to accurately assess hypothetical death toll had it not been for the ANCs atrocious response, but what is undeniable, is that the ANCs response killed an astronomical number of people from young babies, to poor people in townships and even to the wealthy sons of former Presidents. No one was safe from the ANC’s failed health policy.
Corruption
Writing about South Africa’s relationship with corruption is difficult. The sheer scale of content, the near limitless avenues of analysis and dissection of the ANCs scandalous behaviour makes it hard to digest but I will try my best to summarise it here.
The first thing to make clear is that South Africa isn’t a massively corrupt country, and no I am not denying that it exists, instead I am saying its far more an ANC problem than a South African one. Take this graph:
It illustrates the number of municipalities that received “Clean audits”. A clean audit is when an independent body finds that no money has gone “missing” or all sources of funds can be traced back to a reliable source. For example, if the local government build a well for 1000 Rand and all Rands spent can be clearly shown as to what they were used to buy or who to employ, you get a clean audit. If you instead give that 1000 rand to a “Friend” in a corrupt business deal and can’t show where it went to, you don’t get a clean audit. Its a pretty simple illustrator of corruption on a local government level.
In the whole of South Africa, there are 9 provinces, made up of several hundred municipalities. 8 Provinces are run by the ANC, the 1 other (the Western Cape) is run by the Democratic Alliance (a broadly centre to centre right liberal party).
It doesn’t take a genius to see the clear divide between parties and provinces.
The average % of ANC Municipalities that received a clean audit in the 8 ANC provinces stood at a whopping 9.5%, with the DA receiving nearly 10 times as high a number at 92%. You can obviously look at examples of DA corruption, but to compare the two is simply absurd. The link is clear, when the ANC governs on a local level, corruption follows.
The consequences of such local corruption are massive. Crucial road infrastructure remains unrepaired, dangerous and unusable. Water infrastructure is poor and often experiences shortages where for days on end water has to be either rationed or is unusable. Local services used to tackle crime from youth centres or security forces and the police aren’t adequately funded or disappear. Public workers lose their jobs in favour of “Ghost workers”, employees who do not exist in reality but only on paper and who’s “wages” go into the pockets of shadowy businesses, politicians or in some cases, gangs who use it to buy guns from local police forces.
One particularly notable example is that of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, located in the Eastern Cape. Under the ANC, the whole place became dysfunctional. Criminal organisations and businesses had control over the city mangers, the chief financial officer, the head of corporate services, the head of IT, the head of supply chains, the head of legal services, the director of the city mangers/planners and various infrastructure officials. The whole municipality collapsed into a corrupt mess.
If you wish to learn more about this I would recommend this interview with Crispin Oliver:
In simple terms, if your local municipality is governed by the ANC, it is likely to be run like water from a faulty tap, in part because of the ANC party policy of Cadre deployment.
Cadre Deployment
For most who just read “Cadre Deployment” your first reaction was probably, “What is that?” Outside of African media its rarely talked about in comparison to the absurd sensationalist headlines that are meant to portray South Africa and its issues (I am looking at the essentially non issue of white farmers here).
Cadre deployment is a policy that has its origins in the revolutionary movement in the ANC, being used in several former communist states. In short, Cadre deployment is the policy of appointing “Cadres” to specific position in the state, judiciary, civil service, army and all levels of local government. Basically anything with influence. Its stated aim is achieving government objectives and enhancing ties between institutions and the governing party. In theory, the party will appoint capable people to enhance the actions of the state.
However, this is not how its worked. In reality, with an ineffective police force, it has destroyed any culture of meritocracy within the ANC and instead acts as a reward system and punishment for various toxic parts of the state and party. ANC loyalists now are in the DNA of the state, with no guarantee of their ability to run effective governments.
To illustrate the effects of Cadre deployment, take the carrot (the reward) and the stick (punishment) example.
The Carrot
Cadre deployment can obviously be used as a reward for loyalty to the ANC. An official who is not critical of the ruling leader, no matter how much they deny AIDS, run the economy into the ground or fail to deliver basic services will still be rewarded. One who is able to make connections to the ANC, either through making donations, having close friends or working with them can easily influence the ANC and become a Cadre in a branch of the state. The arms of the state then lose independence and its meritocratic structure. The fact the process of appointing Cadres is not open to the public makes the consequences of this even worse, who ensures they are chosen fairly? How is this democratic?. There is zero accountability beyond the higher ups in the ANC, who obviously aren’t likely to be critical of the parties actions. The ANC and current President have even being caught lying saying they didn’t use Cadres to make recommendations for judges who could in fact be judging ANC corruption charges or the conduct of politicians and businesses.
Cadres then can effect the state in numerous other toxic ways. This could be through local spending in ANC strongholds, not where its really needed, overlooking wrongdoing of an ANC politician or their allies such as the Gupta brothers (don’t worry if you don’t know them we will come on to them later) or they don’t properly scrutinise the actions of the state if it reflects poorly on them or the ANC. It rewards poor government and corrupt links.
The Stick
The punishment aspect of Cadre deployment also cannot be ignored. Being a Cadre is a secure form of employment that is high paying and gives you inroads to a variety of income streams (not all of them legal). To have this career path stripped of you can therefore act as a strong punishment to those who dare speak out against the ANC.
Put yourself in the shoes of a young ANC staffer, trying to make it in politics. If the possibility of Cadre deployment rears its head to you, its only reasonable to take it given the circumstances we just discussed. But if you speak out against the ANC, their public health policy, their corruption, their attitudes to crime or get into a twitter spat with the President, this is taken from you. If you are already a Cadre, this opportunity could be stripped from you too. If you don’t do favours for ANC politicians once you are a Cadre, this could be legal or illegal, you may find yourself quickly out of a job. The cycle of dogmatic loyalty therefore stays in the very fabric of the ANC.
Lasting thoughts on Cadre Deployment
In short, Cadre deployment is key for allowing the ANC party structure to poison institutions, the public aren’t served, the party comes first. Its essential for understanding how corruption is created and allowed to flourish and not fought by the courts or state.
Presidential Corruption
The ANC’s corruption cannot be dissected properly without looking at their two most recent presidents, starting first with Jacob Zuma.
Jacob Zuma we have already discussed due to his rape trial. He is a truly baffling man. A well known activist in the fight against apartheid, a guy who gave a speech in favour of polygamy at the WEF (he has married 5 times and has at least 20 children we know of, both legitimate and illegitimate) and a man who installed a swimming pool with taxpayer money in his home as a "fire safety measure.”
Jacob Zuma has been involved in so much corruption it would be impossible to dissect all of it in this article, but I want to focus on his most notable, his relationship with the Gupta Brothers.
The Gupta brothers are a wealthy Indian family with business interests in mining, transport, energy and investment with large business ties to south Africa and crucially, massive donors to the ANC. They essentially used their business interests to make Jacob Zuma and the ANC their poodle, a “Deep state” so to say. The Guptas would pick Cadre deployments and Cabinet Appointments such as the Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula. It has been frequently alleged that other Ministerial positions, like Mineral Resources and the allocation of funding’s and operative Governance and Traditional affairs were also appointed with their input, with the Guptas having large business interests in all these parts of government, its not hard to see how this would benefit them and hurt competition and good governance.
The Guptas links to the ANC allowed them to massively expand their mineral businesses and effectively decapitate all competition in this industry, win billion dollar contracts in coal and state utility company Eskom (we will come to Eskom later) and control Nuclear procurement and win contracts to build Nuclear reactors and extract Uranium at suspiciously cheap fees. Billions worth of power plant construction contracts were awarded to them, despite their performance being so poor that power outages became frequent and the production of energy fell. The Guptas played a key role in stopping the production of renewable energy sources and instead pressured the government to rely on coal, even when the coal which the ANC now admits, was not high quality enough to be reliable source of energy.
Their corruption also extends to the armaments industry, in which Jacob Zumas son and the Guptas own a 25% stake in VR Laser services (a large weapons manufacturing company) which was involved in multi billion dollar deals with no proof of adequate compliance with the laws around security.
The airway industry is also not safe from the Guptas corruption. With them using their links to get the government to spend billions of unnecessary spending on private jets for Zuma, current President Ramaphosa and their family. They were also involved in large contracts with South African Airways, helping businesses affiliated with them open offshore accounts and getting wasteful contracts. The airway company did go bankrupt shortly after these scandals.
Zuma, using their power and money, effectively bribed members of the party, bought influence for him and the Guptas to remain rich and powerful. While the Guptas captured the workings of the state to enrich themselves.
I am not even scraping the surface of the amount of corruption Jacob Zuma and the Guptas used to advance their wealth and political interests. Their greed and malice led to the significant decline of public services and corruption culture that persists today.
Where are they today?
The Guptas through ANC mismanagement managed to escape to the middle east, where they avoid extradition and will not be put on trial in South Africa or on trial at all, they have escaped any consequences for their crimes.
Jacob Zuma, despite being convicted of several crimes and being sentenced to prison was released after only 1 hour/ Why is this you may ask? Because the ANC passed a measure which forces prisons to release “non-violent” offenders in the case of prison “overcrowding”. in turn, freeing Zuma from his “non violent” sentence. This was the first time any measure was ever used and there has been no formal explanation as to why Jacob Zuma was released alongside petty thieves and lower level crimes, but I think we all know the reason, the ANC wants to protect corruption and in its current form it will never be able to effectively fight it. It will only get worse with them in power.
Cyril Ramaphosa
The successor to Jacob Zuma was a man called Cyril Ramaposa. He was a calm, respected and extremely intelligent figure in the ANC, returning to politics after becoming one of the richest men in Africa after apartheid ended, having a new worth of around $500 million (the source of this wealth is hotly disputed). He came into power, funded by his large wealth, on the promise of economic reforms that were sensible and moderate and to tackle corruption and fix the frequent power cuts and broken public services.
None of this has been achieved, instead things have just gotten worse.
Ramaposa’s promise to fix corruption has been a weak one, there is no effort to abolish or really reform Cadre Deployments and the wealthy businessman has been caught in a large corruption scandal of his own, dubbed PhalaPhalaFarmGate.
The story according to the security services goes like this:
In one of the many secretive properties of the President, several burglars break in to one of the Presidents farms, likely unaware that it even belonged to the President and ransack the place. They try break into safes, steal valuable possessions, typical burglar stuff. However the situation takes a strange turn when they discover most valuables not in a secure place like a safe, but instead large amounts of foreign currency was stuffed in sofas and other furniture. The actual number still hasn’t been confirmed, some saying it was over 4 million dollars, the President saying the amount stolen was only less than 600,00. But upon discovering the wide slew of foreign cash, the suspects took it and fled, but were later tracked down by what seems to be the Presidents security team. The next details are unclear. State security services not affiliated with the President and amaBhungane allege the thieves were then kidnapped by the Presidents security team and let free only if they accepted cash bribes for their silence to never say the burglary or the stealing of cash took place or give details about the fact that the cash was in foreign currency to the police. Ramaphosa refused to publish any footage of the incident and naturally, many arguments emerged about the specifics of the burglary but one in particular, “was there any police presence?” suddenly became answered when out of nowhere, the EFF (yes the crazy black nationalist party you see people post about on twitter) somehow got the footage from inside the house showing no adequate police presence, forcing the head of the South African police to admit there was no police guarding the Presidents farm. An especially odd thing given the ANC pushing for all high up officials to have police security and protection.
Ramaphosas response:
Ramaphosa argued that the money was given in foreign cash as it was an international transaction for the sale of Ankole cattle to a Sudanese businessman and he didn’t report the incident to the police as he didn’t want to cause any fear in the farming community. No other real comments on the incident have been made.
The Presidents response wasn’t particularly detailed and leaves us with many questions:
Why was there no police presence around the farm? Did the President want to hide something from them?
Why did the President hide cash in furniture, instead of banks or a secure place?
Why was this money not declared to the correct financial authorities?
Seeing as it wasn’t declared to any financial authorities, was the money fairly and legally taxed?
Why is the money in several different types of foreign currency if the money stolen was only from profits made from cattle sold to Sudan?
Why did Ramaphosa not press charges earlier?
How and why did Ramaphosa’s private security actually recover the stolen cash without telling the police first?
Why did Rampasoha go to such lengths to not make it public or release footage?
It doesn’t take an investigative genius to know that something does not add up, only made weirder by the fact Ramaphosa himself has given very little comments on the matter.
Quickly legal and political consequences followed Ramaphosa. Arthur Fraser (the former head of South Africa’s state security agency) made several hefty legal allegations to the police. Several bodies and Panels both state, judicial, inside and outside the ANC made investigations into the incident, many still ongoing.
But the most important one, released to parliament found that Ramaphosa had committed serious violations of his oath of office in the handling of the break in, not properly collaborating with the police and having “a conflict between his official responsibilities and his private business.”
Ramaposha faced leadership challenges in the ANC and impeachment proceedings in parliament. Although some ANC members tried to defy him, none succeeded and with many investigations still ongoing, South Africa and the ANC failed to hold what largely seems a crook, to account.
If the President after a President kicked out of office for corruption is himself corrupt, and his corrupt party does essentially nothing to fight against it, what does that say about the state of the ANC and its ability to fight corruption?
Crime and Violence
South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world. 4 of the most dangerous cities in Africa are in South Africa. Its murder rate is nearly 7 times higher than that of the United States. 25% of men in a poll conducted by the MRC said they had raped someone in the last year, with 75% of them admitting the first they did so was during their teenage years. A different one done in the Gauteng province found that the number was as high as 40%. Nearly 1000 births took place last year as a result of statutory rape. As a result South Africa frequently ranks the highest or near the highest in estimated rapes in the world. Xenophobic attacks are frequently in the news, with many Zimbabweans being beaten to death in the street for not “proving their legal right to stay here.” South Africa has some of the highest rates of murder, assault, domestic violence and theft in the world.
Although crime has fallen post apartheid, this is not a massive achievement. Apartheid was a brutal, horrible and dysfunctional system that was essentially the best possible breeding ground for crime. With crime rates either remaining stagnant or increasing since 2010, how has the ANC responded and what is the cause?
We have already discussed some of the socio-economic factors relating to the large amount of crime in South Africa, so here I want to focus on how the Police is run, starting from the very top.
South Africa’s police service has some of the longest wait times in the world, sometimes taking hours to arrive or not arriving at all, even in urban areas. To report a crime to SAPS directly takes even longer or they do not even respond. In a country with such high unemployment, somehow SAPS manages to have a huge staff shortage in call centres, with only around 40% of the staff employed that they need. This has meant millions of calls go unanswered when crimes are reported, with Gauteng, a province of around 16,100,000 people having nearly 4 million missed calls alone.
Even when the police do come/respond, they are ineffective, corrupt and brutal. Over 42,000 criminal complaints were made in the space of 7 years against the South African police, ranging from corruption, theft, murder and rape. Police are poorly trained and under staffed, with poor equipment contributing to the low detection rates. The detection rate is so poor it is only just above 30% for murder and below 25% for robbery.
The police are notoriously corrupt too, with half of South Africans thinking that all or most of them are corrupt according to a poll in 2019. The police are full of Cadres and the poor wages, poor oversight and staff shortages means corruption and bribery has become common, with police units not wanting to call it out for fear of political and public image damage. This has been made worse by the fact that the ANC plans to cut around 25,000 police officers in the next few years, making the staff shortages and policing quality even worse. Most of the cuts weren’t made to the high level position and the notoriously bloated bureaucracy and to Cadres, but instead to low level police officers on the street and detectives.
Police brutality is shockingly bad. Nearly 3 billion Rand has been payed to victims of police brutality in the past decade, far larger than its other African counterparts. Cover ups are common such as when a 16 year old boy with down syndrome by the name of Nathaniel Julies was shot in the face with a shotgun by police when he was unable to answer their questions relating to gang activity, this is in spite of the fact that his disability made it difficult for him to speak. A large cover up ensued, the police saying he was caught in the crossfire after they took his dead body to hospital, while eyewitnesses all around the town alleged that had not been the case. Eventually, the minister of Police Bheki Cele had to admit wrongdoing, and called the shooting of a disabled child by the police “Uncalled for” but if not for the eyewitnesses, the police likely would’ve got off scot-free.
What then came out after the attempted cover up was that the police had used prohibited ammunition, the origin of it is unknown, possibly from gangs, or from poor oversight. Either way, its a key example of how police is incompetent, violent and cruel.
But the police don’t just fail to stop gangs, they actively help them and give them weapons. In 2016 Chris Prinsloo pleaded guilty to selling nearly 3000 guns to gangs in Cape Town with over 1000 murders that were solved being linked to these weapons. This is able to happen because the police are closely tied to gangs and are easily bribed, with few corruption authorities being able to police the police, with Cadres who are in theory meant to stop this, doing little.
The Economy
Post apartheid, South Africa’s economy began to grow massively. Doubling in 12 years from 1995 to 2007, achieving a GDP of 332 billion dollars. Non-white South Africans were now allowed to achieve higher wages, gain better skills, move to different areas to find jobs and the removal of a wide array of sanctions increased demands for South African goods and further integrated them into the global economy. South Africa looked to be going in the right direction.
However, wealth inequality remains a huge issue with the Gini coefficient rising from 58 to 63 in 20 years (the highest in the world). Unemployment has absolutely exploded, with it also being the highest in the world of the 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg (this list doesn’t mention war torn countries), this is in spite of the fact in 2008 it was massively falling.
Youth unemployment is particularly bad and the main source of this economic hardship with it rising to 64% in 2021.
South Africa has the tools to achieve huge economic growth, lower unemployment and improve the economy. It’s easily one of the most developed countries in Africa and has a wealth of natural resources and a huge pool of young willing and able possible workers. But the ANC post Mandela has failed to use this to grow the economy. I believe the 2 big factors in how the economy has become so bad are the ANCs handling of Public transport and Energy, both massively hurt by corruption.
Transport
Before Zuma got into power, South Africa had one of the most developed rail systems in Africa. However, after a large amount of Cadres were deployed to run Transnet, railways are barely functional. Its now drowning in debt, with large amounts of money being wasted on corruption and mismanagement, all while having a shortage of workers with some of the highest unemployment rates in the world.
Exports and imports from other African countries, especially related to coal and energy have struggled. South Africa’s coal exports have fallen to their lowest levels since 1993 and Iron ore exports falling to their lowest levels since 2010. Leading to billions of dollars in GDP being lost. South African rail has lost a quarter of its freight trains in 5 years since 2017.
Some of South Africa’s main lines such as from Johannesburg to Randfontein have become near unusable, huge amounts of workers now having to spend more, on a worse service to get to work, or just losing their jobs all together as they can’t get there. The few that still run, are overcrowded and incredibly dangerous.
Buses have also not been speared from mismanagement, losing billions of Rands in money to corruption and being riddled with delays and poor service. As a result, people now use other, more socially harmful forms of transport, which are less productive.
Loadshedding
Loadshedding is a term used to describe the scheduled black outs South Africa has in order to stop the countries electrical grid collapsing. Power could be gone for only 3 hours a day or up to 10 during one of the many stages of loadshedding. The fault of Loadshedding again lies with the state energy generator and the ANCs mismanagement of it and their broader energy policy.
It started in 2007 after the ANC didn’t invest in increasing energy production capacity and procrastinated maintenance repairs on power plants, leaving it far too late, forcing the government to cut energy consumption drastically to meet the supply or risk the entire grid collapsing. Cadres were deployed to try and fix it, but 15 years later it shows no signs of improving and has actually gotten much worse. With Eskom saying that citizens and businesses should prepare for some form of daily blackouts for the next 2 years.
Eskom’s energy production oscillates between poor to dysfunctional. In September 2022 half of Eskoms generating capacity was lost after several power stations began to break. Worse is that when many of these power plants malfunction, there is no reason as to why. For example, the Duvha Power Station (connected to the Guptas we mentioned earlier, definitely not suspicious at all) broke down in 2014 and no explanation has been given as to how, with it still not being properly functional to this day.
The effects of loadshedding are horrible, poor South Africans (who are rarely white) who cannot afford generators have to suffer not being able to use internet, a lifeline for many in education and work. The disabled who often rely on energy intensive medical equipment die or fall seriously ill, such as those who use oxygen machines. South Africa’s hospitals aren’t spared either, with only 10% in 2022 receiving consistent power supply with lights, elevators, computers and medical equipment frequently not working properly or at all if there is no backup generator. Even mortuaries have become dysfunctional, as there isn’t enough electricity to keep bodies consistently cool so they rot away.
When power goes out, street and traffic lights often don’t work, leading to a sharp rise in road place accidents, thefts, murders, stabbings, rapes, assaults and with townships who don’t have generators or private security being particularly badly effected.
Businesses, especially small ones can’t maintain a sound production schedule with blackouts so they have to spend millions on generators, if they can’t afford this, they go bust. Restaurants lose huge amounts of food as they rot in fridges that don’t have the power to keep cool. The effects on mental health and education are massive, as the internet and TV for poor South Africans becomes impossible to use.
It’s very easy to figure out how this hurts the economy, with 208 days of power cuts in 2022, growth was 5% lower according to PwC chief economists than it would’ve been without loadshedding.
The root cause of this crisis, once again lies with the ANC. Their failure to invest in multiple branches of energy, fix generators earlier, give contracts to reliable companies that are effective and not corrupt has meant production of energy has not kept up with demand. Remember the Guptas? Their contracts with Eskom was one of the largest in the country and they actively lobbied against green energy resources and now with South African coal being of poor quality, and the trains being so bad they cant properly import better quality coal, South Africa hasn’t been able to meet demand or properly produce domestic clean energy. Theft is endemic in Eskom, workers often steal, money, cables, diesel and power from the company, and with a culture of bribery, corruption and sworn loyalty to the ANC, with an incredibly bad police service, very few are held accountable. In fact, its a key reason why green sources of energy haven’t been perused nearly enough as for obvious reasons its far harder to steal the sun or wind than it is coal. The ANC has pledged time and time again since 2008 to fix/end loadshedding, but with no plans to do a mass investment in energy infrastructure and with loadshedding getting worse each year, its pretty safe to say that the ANC should not be the party trusted to fix the problems they created.
Closing thoughts
South Africa is a wonderful country that showed great promise after apartheid ended. Growth was high, people were hopeful, crime was falling and it seemed like Mandela had turned the liberation movement into a functioning political party. However, we have seen the ANC is increasingly unable to govern effectively with multiple presidents being caught in huge corruption scandals and the party at large being poisoned by it. Unfortunately, I had to skip many other issues with the ANC, such as Watershedding (water outages and rationings), the huge rise in xenophobia, their housing catastrophe, inability to gain investment, the Stellenbosch mafia and issues relating to foreign policy. But even when ignoring these, I hope I have made it clear to you that the ANC shouldn’t be allowed to govern again in its current form, or the country will suffer greatly. The ANC must lose at the next general election.
I loved how you reported this groundbreaking and shocking information about the many issues plaguing South Africa in a detailed and extensive way. And for me, I'd like to thank you for writing about these critical events because, like me, I'm confident that many people outside of South Africa had no idea what was going on! In closing, I love how you brought to light information
regarding South Africa's corruption, load-shedding, security, and much more. Please take my comments to heart and write more articles like these! Thank you!