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Eyewitness News
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
National Dialogue is a distraction from failure to achieve meaningful transformation
Malaika Mahlatsi 13 June 2025 | 10:10 national dialogue Cyril Ramaphosa African National Congress (ANC) President Cyril Ramaphosa announces a National Dialogue for 2025. Image: @CyrilRamaphosa On 10 June 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced developments on the National Dialogue that he proposed just over a year ago. These developments include the establishment of a team of 'eminent persons' whose role will be to 'guide and champion' the dialogue. These 'eminent persons' are influential individuals in government (current and former), the private sector, academia and broader civil society (to some extent). According to the president, the dialogue aims to discuss the challenges facing South Africa and to 'forge a path into the future in dialogue with one another'. Ramaphosa likened this National Dialogue to the discussions that occurred during apartheid. He stated: 'Through dialogue, we were able to deal with the challenges that the apartheid system caused in our country and achieved peace and overcame violence. We established a democracy and ended apartheid. Following the negotiations process, we used dialogue to start building a united nation where once there had only been conflict and division. We achieved all this because we came together in dialogue to discuss our difficulties, our concerns, our hopes and our aspirations as a people'. On the surface, a National Dialogue seems like a good idea. South Africa is increasingly becoming polarised, with divisions occurring along racial, class, ideological, ethnic and gender lines. There is no question that ours is a deeply divided society, and that dialogue has a place in healing a divided people. I understood this a few years ago when I attended a march against the ZANU-PF's authoritarian reign in Zimbabwe, held in Pretoria by the Zimbabwean diaspora. What was supposed to be a protest against the brutality of the regime exposed deeply concerning divisions that made it clear that the issues in Zimbabwe are deeper than the reality that the ZANU-PF government enjoys a monopoly of violence and governs with a margin of terror. Scores of protestors held posters calling for cessation, arguing that Matabeleland should break away from the Republic of Zimbabwe, using regressive arguments rooted in ethnic chauvinism. But at the heart of this thinking is the unacknowledged trauma of Gukurahundi, a genocide that ripped through Matabeleland between 1983 and 1987, where tens of thousands of Ndebele people were slaughtered by the Fifth Brigade under the instruction of Robert Mugabe's government. The lack of dialogue about Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe has not only made victims of the genocide invisible but has cemented unimaginable generational trauma. There is a necessity for dialogue in Zimbabwe, just as there is in many parts of the continent where traumas have gone unacknowledged. So, as a principle, I do support national dialogues. I value their significance. But scratch beneath the surface of the proposed National Dialogue in South Africa, and you realise that here, it is nothing more than a distraction from the failure of the democratic government to achieve meaningful transformation. Unlike in Zimbabwe, where injustice has not even been acknowledged, in our country, the issue is not about a lack of dialogue but rather, lack of action. Furthermore, the president's likening of the dialogue to negotiations that 'ended' apartheid is manipulative and a distortion of history. The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), the negotiating forum established in 1991 after the National Peace Accord, which aimed at transitioning South Africa from apartheid to a democratic government, may have provided a platform for dialogue, but it did not 'end' apartheid. The power of mass action, both domestically and internationally, coupled with the economic and political unsustainability of apartheid, led to its end. By the time the negotiations happened, the apartheid regime was so isolated globally that the economic logic and incentive for apartheid was no longer sustainable. It was the people of South Africa and our allies across the world who made apartheid unworkable and made negotiations a logical conclusion. Insisting that CODESA 'ended' apartheid is a form of erasure of the role that South Africans played in their liberation, and historical revisionism that has come to define the narrative of struggle in the democratic dispensation. The issues that the president wants to see addressed by the National Dialogue are not unknown. The government is fully aware what the issues in our country are. Its own research institutions such as the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO), government departments, think tanks, learning institutions, the media, and all manner of institutions and platforms have repeatedly communicated what the issues in South Africa are and what they have been since the dawn of and the government know exactly what ails us and what solutions are needed to alleviate the struggles that we confront. There is nothing that a consultative process will bring to light that protesting communities, activists, scholars and people on the margins (including women, the LGBTQI+ community, migrants, persons with disabilities, Khoisan people, etc) have not already expressed. Even more, the root of the problem for which symptoms have been protested over, analysed and commented on by South Africans across all walks of life, is known. The government of our country knows that unless the nucleus of racial capitalism, from whence the chromatin network of landlessness, poverty, inequalities, and all forms of structural violence emerges, is addressed, meaningful transformation will not happen. No matter how much ignorance it feigns, the government knows. For this reason, I am in full agreement with Sinawo Tambo, the spokesperson of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), who posits that Ramaphosa is attempting to make South Africans take collective responsibility for the failures of the party he leads and seeks to mask this scapegoating with the sentimentality of a National Dialogue. The dialogue gives an illusion of a government that listens when in reality, the South African government, and certainly, the African National Congress (ANC), has proven impervious to listening. Ramaphosa wants to keep South Africa in an endless cycle of dialogue to distract us from the fact that the government is failing to facilitate the radical reform that is needed to redress the injustices of the country's amoral past. He wants us to dialogue because he does not have the guts to make demands on those who remain resistant to change – the unrepentant White minority that has become emboldened by the inertia of his government and has opted out of participating in the process of nation-building without consequence. Instead, the oppressed are expected to beg for justice and to negotiate for humanisation. Instead of dedicating taxpayers' resources to a performative consultative process, the government should be channelling those resources towards programmes/initiatives aimed at addressing gender-based violence, structural reform, economic and spatial justice, and service delivery. These are some key issues that South Africans have already expressed as needing urgent intervention. These are issues the country has already communicated through dialogues in communities, through the media and on platforms. To want to have South Africans repeat them for the purpose of symbolism is callous. President Ramaphosa must reflect deeply on the sentiments expressed in Karl Marx's 11th thesis in the Theses on Feuerbach , who, in his critique of the traditional role of philosophy, which he saw as primarily theoretical, contends that: 'Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it'. In the context of South Africa, the people have dialogued in various ways; the point for the government is to muster the political will to act. Malaika, a bestselling and award-winning author, is a geographer and researcher at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation. She is a PhD in Geography candidate at the University of Bayreuth in Germany.
Eyewitness News
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Dear Executive Mayor, this Johannesburg that you are not serious about is our home
Malaika Mahlatsi 9 May 2025 | 15:06 Dada Morero City of Johannesburg FILE: City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero. Picture: City of Joburg I want to reflect on the State of the City Address that was delivered by City of Johannesburg mayor, Dada Morero, this past Wednesday. I want to preface this with a personal statement and to state that I write this article as a lifelong resident of Johannesburg – as a young person who was born and raised in Soweto and who, even as I am now a legal resident of Germany, maintain primary residency in a Johannesburg that I love and cherish deeply. Johannesburg is at the core of my identity. I show up to the world as Malaika whose political consciousness was birthed in Johannesburg. My parents met as student activists and members of the Soweto Youth Congress. My mother gave birth to me at Meadowlands Clinic, and so, it is in the soil of Soweto where my umbilical cord is buried. My activism was not born in the corridors of Rhodes University as a branch secretary of the South African Students Congress (SASCO) or the gatherings of the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall at the university's purple square, but at Bapedi Hall in zone 3 Meadowlands, where my mother and the late uncles Bathandwa 'Baps' Godlo, Sipho Makama, Clifford Sedibe and Katishi 'Dallas' Masemola used to sit me on their laps in meetings of the African National Congress (ANC). It was through conversations with uncles Norman Ngwedzeni, Fred Mokoko, Strive Ralekgoma, aunts Ndivhuwo Sekoba, Gadifele and many others that I became aware of the history that Black people carry on their backs. Johannesburg is the resting place of my mother. It is the place where all my dreams gestated and where my aspirations were born. Johannesburg is home. It is for this reason that I will always have a house in Johannesburg, no matter where else in the universe I may choose to reside. I pay my rates and taxes to this city's municipality and I will always do so. I love Johannesburg. And it is because I love Johannesburg that I cannot accept that Morero should stand before us, in a time of crisis, and deliver a SOCA that is devoid of substance and inspires no confidence. And make no mistake, the City of Johannesburg is in a state of crisis. What was once touted as a 'world-class African city' has been reduced to a city in a state of decay, with major infrastructure crumbling before our eyes. The streets that I used to walk on and travel to school on in a Putco bus have become riddled with potholes. Traffic lights are not working in literally every neighbourhood, including the heart of the city's economy in the north. From Fourways to the centre of Sandton, Kyalami to Midrand, young men whose geo-histories have been impacted by the legacy of colonial and apartheid violence, and dreams shattered by maladministration in the post-apartheid dispensation, direct traffic in the scorching heat and in pouring rain, just to get R5 coins from motorists. These young men, some of them my age, children of the 1990s like me, have been so emasculated by the structural violence and poverty of our city that to direct traffic is the only way they can participate in this country, in this economy, that has hurled them to the periphery. When Morero stands before us to deliver a SOCA in this climate, one expects to hear a clear plan of action on how Johannesburg is going to arrest the decline. But this is not what he does. Instead, he delivers a mockery of an address that pats former ANC mayors on the back without providing a meaningful context to the barometer of struggle and transformative interventions that worked and those that could not, and why this was the case. He does not provide details on how such instruments as the Economic Recovery Plan of the city are being implemented and monitored, or what mechanisms are in place to unlock the city's investment pipeline. Instead, he speaks about how certain countries around the world could 'showcase' their abilities to help the city – how countries such as Japan could facilitate skills development programmes because 'the majority of taxis and minibuses in Johannesburg are your brand'. Has the City engaged with these countries? What is the progress of those engagements? What are the timelines of delivery and implementation? A city as important as Johannesburg cannot be run on a hope-and-pray strategy where a mayor hopes countries will have the moral conscience to invest. A bold investment strategy is needed – and the SOCA did not even begin to outline one. Morero speaks about how revitalising the inner city is 'personal' but does not engage with the very serious issue of growing gentrification and studentification that is displacing working-class communities and contributing to the cost-of-living crisis that has caused the growth of tenements in the city. Morero pontificates about ensuring water security and touts Joburg Water as a champion of this endeavour, but says nothing of the impediments that confront the water and sanitation utility. Beyond incapacity, these include a massive R3 billion it needs to address water infrastructure backlog and improve water supply reliability, for which there is no clarity on where it will come from. Meanwhile, residents across Johannesburg continue to experience severe water security challenges that are collapsing small businesses and interfering with teaching and learning. When you think the SOCA cannot get more depressing, Morero touts the creation of a 'Bomb Squad' to address issues that officials within the city are employed and must be capacitated to resolve. This is the very definition of institutional fundamentalism – the creation of new institutions to resolve institutional problems. It has become a feature of governance in South Africa under the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa, who is himself an institutional fundamentalist. But rather than resolve problems, these new institutions erode the capacity of the state by duplicating functions that belong within departments and units, rendering officials ineffective. If Morero believes that officials in the city are ineffective, then why are they still employed or at least, not being adequately capacitated? Why must we, residents and taxpayers in Johannesburg, pay stipends to former senior government officials who will make up this 'Bomb Squad' when we have people employed in the city for the job? Morero then goes on to rhetoric about revenue collection, something that is and will remain a challenge in an economically depressed city. What we needed to hear were details about a Revenue Enhancement Strategy, similar to what the Gauteng Provincial Treasury has presented to the province. Such a strategy must outline the instruments and mechanisms that will be utilised or developed to enhance the city's revenue. None of these details were provided, even briefly. And so, we are left unsure of the plan of action for revenue generation. Morero also makes some legally questionable and bizarre proposals, including the rotation of senior managers. These are Section 56 managers who are appointed by Council under the Municipal Systems Act, based on the specific requirements of the jobs they applied for. The idea that these people can be moved willy-nilly by an Executive Mayor, who is not empowered by any law to do what he is proposing, is outrageous. There is a reason why recent legislative amendments to the Municipal Systems Act draw a stronger line between the political and the administrative in municipal government. Morero should know better. He further proposes the rotation of members of his mayoral committee. For what reason and to what end? I could say a lot about his requests to residents of the City to comply with municipal by-laws and to not vandalise public infrastructure. But what I will say is that you cannot lead people with whom you do not have a social compact that is constantly evaluated. This idea that people are recipients of the state's charity and instructions undermines their ability to meaningfully engage and be engaged in issues that affect their lives. It is captured most aptly by Phindile Kunene, an activist educator and the head of democracy and political culture at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, who, in an article published by the Sowetan a month ago, argues for engagement with citizens as a means of addressing the destruction and steady erosion of Gauteng public infrastructure. I want to reiterate that I love Johannesburg. I, and all the millions of residents who call this city home, deserved a SOCA that demonstrated a deep appreciation of the seriousness of the challenges that we are facing. We deserved a plan of action with clear demonstration of political will to turn things around. We deserved something to give us hope in times of crisis. We deserved a vision that we could support. What we received, instead, was a SOCA that lacked in imagination and serious political strategy. It was a SOCA that affirmed that we have a collective leadership in Johannesburg that is engaging in a calamitous retreat from the habit of thinking. It is gut-wrenching. Malaika is an award-winning, bestselling author, geographer and researcher at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation. She is a PhD in Geography candidate at the University of Bayreuth in Germany.
Eyewitness News
26-04-2025
- Business
- Eyewitness News
MALAIKA MAHLATSI: DA's opposition to the budget has nothing to do with the poor
Malaika Mahlatsi 25 April 2025 | 11:10 Government of national unity (GNU) Democratic Alliance (DA) Enoch Godongwana Democratic Alliance officials and supporters outside the Western Cape High Court on 22 April 2025 for the party's legal challenge against the VAT increase. Picture: @Our_DA/X On the 24th of April 2025, the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, gazetted the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill that will reverse the contentious 0.5 percentage point value-added tax (VAT) increase that he had proposed in the 2025 Budget Speech that he tabled in Parliament a month ago. This will keep the VAT rate at 15 percent. According to a statement issued by the National Treasury, the decision to reverse the increase follows extensive consultations with political parties, as well as careful consideration of the recommendations of the parliamentary committees. Shortly after the VAT reversal was announced, the Democratic Alliance (DA) held a media briefing where the party's Federal Council chairperson, Helen Zille, stated that it was the DA's "muscle in the courts" that forced Godongwana to scrap the VAT hike. The DA also announced that lawyers acting for Godongwana had approached its lawyers, proposing an out-of-court settlement, in the matter the DA brought to interdict the VAT increase (the Economic Freedom Fighters [EFF] also took the matter to court). Using the VAT matter, the DA has positioned itself as pro-poor. The liberal media in South Africa has (not unexpectedly) bought into this narrative and insists on peddling it as fact. It isn't. The DA is not and has never been a pro-poor party, and the fact that it fought against the VAT increase, which would have affected the poor, must not blind us to the real motivations behind the party's stance. The DA has made a lot of noise about how it stood on the side of the poor in the fight against the increase of VAT. The liberal media has intentionally minimised and is attempting to erase the true motive for why the DA did not support the budget. This motive is not secret. DA party leader, John Steenhuisen, told Newzroom Afrika's Iman Rappetti shortly after Godongwana tabled the Budget in March that his party was opposed to the increase in VAT and any other tax hikes, but that it was willing to engage with the African National Congress (ANC) on the matter. Steenhuisen contended that the DA had made concessions on several key issues and argued that other parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU) needed to do the same. More significantly, he argued that a deal might be put back on the table, but on condition that discussions and concessions needed to be made on the Expropriation Act, which he claimed could not be divorced from the Budget as it is "an impediment to investment" in the country. He went further to state that the Expropriation Act has created a major problem in the United States, and boldly claimed that this "problem" would soon extend to Europe. While he acknowledged that the US's interpretation of the Act was based on misinformation, he went on to claim that it serves as a deterrent to investment in South Africa, asking Rappetti, without any sense of irony: "Would you invest billions at a factory if, at a stroke of a pen, a government official can expropriate that without compensation?" In asking this question, Steenhuisen did exactly what the DA and the liberal media have been doing – invoking fear in the minds of potential investors that the Expropriation Act would be facilitated in an unlawful manner. He simultaneously peddled the false narrative about the intentions of the Expropriation Act that the Donald Trump administration is using to bully and unfairly target South Africa, using instruments such as tariffs and disregarding the G20 (South Africa assumed the presidency of the international forum in November 2024). The Expropriation Act does not intend to give powers to government officials to arbitrarily expropriate land without compensation – even as the White House has claimed it does, and gone on to state on its website that the Act intends to "enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners' agricultural property without compensation". The factual purpose of the Act, rather, is to provide for the expropriation of property for a public purpose or in the public interest; to regulate the procedure for the expropriation of property for a public purpose or in the public interest, including payment of compensation; to identify certain instances where the provision of nil compensation may be just and equitable for expropriation in the public interest; to repeal the Expropriation Act, 1975 (Act No. 63 of 1975); and to provide for matters connected therewith. It is clear that the Expropriation Act does not intend to make allowance for arbitrary expropriation. It also does not do away with the payment of compensation entirely. So why does the DA insist on using it as a scare-mongering tactic? The answer is simple: the "pro-poor" party does not believe in the importance of land justice for the indigenous majority of South Africa that has been rendered landless and disenfranchised by centuries of colonialism and decades of apartheid. What the DA calls the protection of property rights is nothing more than the protection of violently dispossessed land from Black people by a White minority that still controls a vast majority of both agricultural and commercial land in South Africa. According to the land audit report published in 2013, which covered state land, only 14% of the country's land is owned by the state, with 79% privately owned and 7% unaccounted for. The second land audit report, published in 201,7 covered private land. It indicates that White people own most of the land held by individuals, with 72% share of farms and agricultural holdings. Black people, who comprise the majority of the country, own only 1% of the total share of private land in South Africa, with just a 4% share of farms and agricultural holdings. White people own the majority share of other types of land, including but not limited to sectional title units. The DA wants this injustice to continue, and one doesn't need to be a genius to understand why. The DA is a party that fundamentally represents the interests of those who benefit from this injustice, as well as the 'investors' who want the status quo to remain because it serves their imperial interests. No country can develop when the majority of its people are as disenfranchised as Black people are in South Africa. Thus, all talk by the DA about being interested in economic and social development is thin air. It simply doesn't align with its anti-transformation and anti-poor policy positions and pronouncements that hide behind "pragmatism". The fact of the matter is that the DA used the Budget as an instrument to blackmail the GNU into making concessions to abandon the Expropriation Act that seeks to redress injustices. It used the Budget not to stand with the poor as it claims, but to smuggle in the interests of its core votership that benefits from the systematic and structural injustices that have kept the majority of South Africans poor. Both the EFF and the DA may have taken the VAT hike battle to court, but only one of the parties was doing it because it genuinely wanted to fight for the poor. That party is NOT the Democratic Alliance. Malaika is a geographer and researcher at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation. She is a PhD in Geography candidate at the University of Bayreuth in Germany.
