STATE’S OWN GOAL: To avoid damaging conflicts, social responsibilities must be shared
by Xhanti Payi,
2016-02-25 06:10:17.0
STATE’S OWN GOAL: To avoid damaging conflicts, social responsibilities must be shared
WE MAY be coming closer in this budget to a necessary reform of culture and notions of how our economy and society have to work. We have to insist social solidarity and collaboration are fostered even as we protect an economy based on private property and enterprise.
We saw three areas in this budget that show this. First in Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s pronouncements about public enterprises and the insistence that work be done to promote public-private partnerships. He correctly noted "the strength of our major state-owned companies does not lie in protecting their dominant monopoly positions, but in their capacity to partner with business investors, industry … both locally and domestically."
If we consider these partnerships, especially in terms of ports, these have been extremely successful in countries such as Mozambique, providing efficiency and cost effectiveness. Further, we are seeing privatisation in what is termed in the budget "co-funding". This is critical in building efficiency, sharing risk and building an enterprising economy based on government leadership rather than participation, which has tended to crowd out investment.
Perhaps the most important of all the announcements is of the government getting involved in student housing, which until now has either been a private or university affair. The government committed to participate using its housing mandate to assist universities to provide student housing, remembering that some of these shortages arise from our historical and spacial issues. What we need is to go further, looking at a role for public-private partnerships as well as better spacial planning.
SA’s economic and social inequality is of such magnitude that all should look strongly at what we do about the so-called dichotomy between wider access, inclusion and private property protections. If the Fees Must Fall clashes and University of Cape Town (UCT) housing debacle tell us anything, it is that the apartheid structures can no longer hold and all social partners must come into play.
It is not difficult to see that the students who would struggle with accommodation are those from outside the Western Cape, in the case of UCT for example. This has to do with migration for opportunities, as economic centres remain far apart and unequal.
But these students find private accommodation is far or unaffordable as they leave their homes in other provinces, and have no networks to help accommodate them.
The government and private sectors and owners of land, working together, can sort this issue out relatively quickly. This is especially important given the exclusionary patterns of expensive and exclusive private property around the university. We've done well to create a market-friendly economy. But it will not stay so friendly if the social fibre continues to collapse in the alarming way we are seeing.
We have failed in this partnership when it comes to the mining sector, where such patterns of migration still affect people negatively. While the minister recognised the importance of spending more on safety and security and policing around mines and other spots of conflict, he failed to address the conflict’s cause.
If the government had worked better with business, firstly to make sure it complied with commitments to house and care for workers, and secondly with funding improvements to housing and other services in these areas, those conflicts might have been avoided or mitigated.
Social responsibilities must be shared, and the government has to be firm that the market economy does not cannibalise itself but works with the government to create a more equal society that safeguards everyone’s interests.
It was appropriate for the finance minister to close his speech saying: "The joint actions we need will not always be easy. All too often, bureaucrats and businesspeople speak past each other: the needs of the young are not the same as those of the elders, the rhythms of the township differ from those of the suburb. Race, class and language differences interfere with progress, even when we have shared aspirations. We need to bridge these divides."
• Payi is an economist and head of research at Nascence Advisory and Research
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan arrives to deliver his 2016 budget address at Parliament in Cape Town on Wednesday. Picture: REUTERS/MIKE HUTCHINGS
WE MAY be coming closer in this budget to a necessary reform of culture and notions of how our economy and society have to work. We have to insist social solidarity and collaboration are fostered even as we protect an economy based on private property and enterprise.
We saw three areas in this budget that show this. First in Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s pronouncements about public enterprises and the insistence that work be done to promote public-private partnerships. He correctly noted "the strength of our major state-owned companies does not lie in protecting their dominant monopoly positions, but in their capacity to partner with business investors, industry … both locally and domestically."
If we consider these partnerships, especially in terms of ports, these have been extremely successful in countries such as Mozambique, providing efficiency and cost effectiveness. Further, we are seeing privatisation in what is termed in the budget "co-funding". This is critical in building efficiency, sharing risk and building an enterprising economy based on government leadership rather than participation, which has tended to crowd out investment.
Perhaps the most important of all the announcements is of the government getting involved in student housing, which until now has either been a private or university affair. The government committed to participate using its housing mandate to assist universities to provide student housing, remembering that some of these shortages arise from our historical and spacial issues. What we need is to go further, looking at a role for public-private partnerships as well as better spacial planning.
SA’s economic and social inequality is of such magnitude that all should look strongly at what we do about the so-called dichotomy between wider access, inclusion and private property protections. If the Fees Must Fall clashes and University of Cape Town (UCT) housing debacle tell us anything, it is that the apartheid structures can no longer hold and all social partners must come into play.
It is not difficult to see that the students who would struggle with accommodation are those from outside the Western Cape, in the case of UCT for example. This has to do with migration for opportunities, as economic centres remain far apart and unequal.
But these students find private accommodation is far or unaffordable as they leave their homes in other provinces, and have no networks to help accommodate them.
The government and private sectors and owners of land, working together, can sort this issue out relatively quickly. This is especially important given the exclusionary patterns of expensive and exclusive private property around the university. We've done well to create a market-friendly economy. But it will not stay so friendly if the social fibre continues to collapse in the alarming way we are seeing.
We have failed in this partnership when it comes to the mining sector, where such patterns of migration still affect people negatively. While the minister recognised the importance of spending more on safety and security and policing around mines and other spots of conflict, he failed to address the conflict’s cause.
If the government had worked better with business, firstly to make sure it complied with commitments to house and care for workers, and secondly with funding improvements to housing and other services in these areas, those conflicts might have been avoided or mitigated.
Social responsibilities must be shared, and the government has to be firm that the market economy does not cannibalise itself but works with the government to create a more equal society that safeguards everyone’s interests.
It was appropriate for the finance minister to close his speech saying: "The joint actions we need will not always be easy. All too often, bureaucrats and businesspeople speak past each other: the needs of the young are not the same as those of the elders, the rhythms of the township differ from those of the suburb. Race, class and language differences interfere with progress, even when we have shared aspirations. We need to bridge these divides."
• Payi is an economist and head of research at Nascence Advisory and Research
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