Blame apartheid or the ANC: 30 years is too little to fix everything

For government officials to blame apartheid for South Africa’s current state may rightly be viewed as deflecting attention from the ANC’s failures. But this should not mean that the impact of apartheid is not felt among the country’s challenges.

Sure, the ANC has been in power for almost 30 years, but to expect South Africa to become a utopian state in that time is unfair.

People of colour have been abused from the days of slavery, colonialism, apartheid and now neocolonialism. That’s why former president Thabo Mbeki said in 1998 that South Africa is a country of two nations where the quality of life is improving more for whites than other races.

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This is not because nature allowed it to happen. It is because of structural policies that were implemented which are even today having an impact in balancing racial inequalities.

Yes, the ANC could have done better, but that is hard if it has to first rectify past injustices before it can implement changes it has been promising since 1994. We have a society that is negatively engineered. This is the reason it seems South Africa is the worst in the world.

Instead of looking at what progress has been made so far, we focus on what has not been done.

Other countries are also experiencing corruption, unemployment, energy crises, poverty, inequality and crime. But surprisingly, South Africa is expected to be a First World country while it is forgotten it is battling with an unpleasant history.

South Africa still has a bridge to build against racial inequalities – and this should never be taken lightly. It’s not a task that can be addressed in just three decades.

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Yes, the ANC could’ve done better, and it must be held to account. But to expect a country to move from apartheid to perfection in 30 years – while apartheid was in force for nearly 50 years – is impossible.

Moreover, the ANC government is often compared with civil society organisations like AfriForum and Gift of the Givers – this cannot be justified.

Government has the responsibility of the welfare of over 60 million people, while these organisations are not even close to handling that number of people.

The state is working with a limited fiscus and in reality, it is not enough to address all the social ills affecting South Africa.

Many might say AfriForum has built institutions of higher learning, but the ANC government has promised to build two universities and failed to do so. Yet it is forgotten that the ANC government must maintain the present institutions while ensuring that the students attending these institutions use state funds.

Government has many priorities that the fiscus can’t carry alone and politicians must be blamed for not being honest. They should have been forthright in explaining that government alone cannot be the messiah to fix problems that were created years ago.

And this is the reason ministers like Lindiwe Zulu and Sindisiwe Chikunga are frustrated, because problems are mounting every day while they are still faced with huge backlogs of challenges.

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The ANC government has shot itself in the foot by setting audacious goals – like promising to build a million houses in Alexandra and paying unsustainanble social relief grants. Not only is this unrealistic, but these targets have also made it hard for it to step up to the challenge for it has failed to forge strategic partnerships to tackle pre- and post-1994 challenges.

Although this is not an excuse, the ANC could have done better if it had effectively addressed the cancer of corruption.

Maybe we could be further now than where we are after 31 people died of cholera in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, in June; and at least 77 people died in a fire at a hijacked building in the Joburg CBD last week.

If only ANC leaders stopped squabbling, they could have created a better life for all.