As PM Modi has said, what is needed is Minimum Government, Maximum Governance. The entire Global South should follow his maxim.
Some countries have all the requisites of success, and yet languish as underperformers. South Africa is a case in point. The country is gifted with scarce minerals, several unexploited as yet, and a populace that can surprise the world with their achievements once correctly trained. South Africa had been colonised by settlers from the Netherlands, known locally as Afrikaners. They were brutal in their treatment of native South Africans, quick to imprison and thereafter to kill by hanging. Reports have it that when Nelson Mandela spent his decades in a South African prison, there were occasions during the night when prisoners would be marched past his cell on their way to being hanged. Several were known to him, and would try and salute him with their manacled hands while going slowly, painfully, to the noose that was to take their lives. On the way back, only the jailors and prison officials would be there sauntering back.
Their prisoners would have had their lives choked out of them, often painfully rather than speedily. They were each members of the African National Congress, the party to which Mandela subscribed. Ultimately, even defenders of the South African governance model were forced to enforce sanctions against South Africa, hitting the Afrikaners where it hurt their pocketbooks. Ultimately, Mandela was freed, discussions were held with him, which finally ended in a multi-racial government headed by him. President Nelson Mandela was forgiving of even those who had committed atrocities against native South Africans, forming a National Reconciliation Commission to bring native South Africans and white settlers together in a shared future. When the multi-racial government was formed, South Africa was the leading country in the continent where economic growth was concerned. However, since then the country has unperformed, unable to break into the middle income category where all the citizens are concerned.
The quality of the rulers of a country is not judged by the existence of a small number of billionaires but by the quality of life of ordinary citizens. It is here that the failure of the South African government to ensure justice for all becomes evident. Shantytowns still remain scattered in and around the big cities, metropolises such as Cape Town and Johannesburg. When for so many decades it is the African National Congress (ANC) that has been governing South Africa, the question arises as to why such Apartheid-era afflictions continue. The reasons are not difficult to find. They have to do with the contempt of rulers for ordinary people and their propensity to trample their concerns while meeting those of the wealthy and influential.
The first is greed for wealth among politicians in power in South Africa and lower yet still elevated levels, combined with authority to decide the future of projects presented by businesspersons. Highways are completed but become a shambles soon afterwards, needing extensive and expensive repairs, which again last only a short while before the roads are back to the shambles they were in. Each road contract, every repair contract, involves kickbacks to those authorising them. Most of the money is sent abroad, to Europe principally, to where the South African elite send their families to stay and study. Almost all the rulers come from poverty stricken backgrounds, and it would appear that their singular objective is to ensure that their families live in wealth.
Even stock exchanges are compromised, Share prices are manipulated by rejigging policy to boost values of individual shares temporarily up, so that the nominees of the rulers sell out their stock. Then policies are changed to bring down the value of these very shares, so that the rulers buy back the shares at a lower price after having sold them to retail investors and captive financial institutions at a much higher price. In the process, the middle class that invests in the stock market gets fleeced. Thus far the ANC has remained in office on the back of its presentation to the public as the party that safeguards the interests of native South Africans, but more and more citizens are beginning to understand such trickery, and are beginning to oppose the ANC. Not through elections, as the political parties available to choose from are a disappointing lot. Some are only thinly veiled political outfits promoting the past and seeking to represent whites in a manner that hurts the interests of the rest. As a consequence, street protests are becoming endemic, as indeed is disease.
The poor suffer from a variety of ailments, but adequate care is beyond their financial reach. Elite hospitals do exist, but are unaffordable to the money. The others are shabby and often breeders of disease rather than ensuring cures for them. Many of the Afrikaners have settled abroad, most in the US. The maximum number of asylum requests in percentage terms of nationalities granted by the US government under President Donald Trump have gone to Afrikaners. Of course, it must be added that all, or even many, Afrikaners cannot be termed racist. Elon Musk is an example, with his Indian-European ethnic partner of the moment. Coming back to South Africa, the police are controlled from the top, and do what the apex asks them to do, whether legal or illegal, ethical or not. Hence confidence in the police has diminished among ordinary South Africans, for they know action is based on money, not the law. Of course, well-meaning academics churn out paper after paper about how the delivery of good governance can be made feasible, but these are mere scraps of paper.
After all, what happens during the course of the implementation of the policies hinges on just who implements them. When those who do so have collateral motives, the best and most well-thought out policies will get skewed during their implementation and enforcement. It must be admitted that the above is based on the views expressed by those in the US and elsewhere who know South Africa well. Yet the shabby story they unfold follows the same trajectory as followed by several countries in the Global South. Maximum powers to Government result in Maximum Misgovernment. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, what is needed is Minimum Government, Maximum Governance. The entire Global South should follow his maxim rather than do the opposite, which is described here.
