Thirty years into our democracy, it is common cause that South Africa today stands dangerously poised on a steep precipice. The country is at a strategic inflection point: steps taken over the next few months will either haul it back from that precipice or tip it over. It all depends on the kind of leadership that will now be offered by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s multi-party government. 

That the majority of the country’s electorate shares that sentiment was evidenced by the outcome of the May 29 elections, which saw the once-mighty ANC deservedly cut down to size, with a massive 60% of those who participated in what must amount to a plebiscite rejecting the organisation.

During a moment of crisis, such as the country is currently facing, a bold and decisive leadership is required, which will be both agile and courageous enough to take the tough decisions that will be necessary. The so-called Government of National Unity (GNU) put together by the ANC will not have the luxury of time to engage in mutual backslapping. Instead, it will be required, from its first day in office, to have the cojones to wrest the country back from the brink where it is currently delicately poised.

The new Government finds itself charged with the responsibility to implement a tough turnaround strategy. Regrettably, in the past 15 years, just about everything has deteriorated badly in South Africa. The economy has shrunk, most of our public hospitals are a mess, most public schools are in a state of crisis, our State-owned companies are in various states of decline, our public infrastructure is decrepit, the city of Johannesburg is falling apart and now we have a looming national water crisis. In some areas of our lives, South Africa has regressed, instead of making any progress.

Such a situation calls for decisive leadership which will turn the country’s fortunes around, lest we tip over the precipice. Things simply cannot continue in the same way they have been until now.

The literature on turnaround strategy is unanimous in its view that arresting corporate decline and turning a company’s fortunes around requires, as a starting point, the change of such a company’s top management team, as some form of “shock therapy”, and a change in organisational culture. Turnaround strategy guru Charles Hofer argues that the appointment of a new CEO during such a period is “a precondition for almost all successful turnarounds”, while Donald Bibeault argues that such a person must accept that s/he will have to “step on a lot of toes” as s/he goes about doing her/his job. It is only when the source of the decline is entirely attributable to exogenous factors that the retention of an existing CEO is countenanced – even then only because s/he is said to know “where the skeletons are hidden”.

According to Bibeault, there are at least four factors that are indispensable for the successful implementation of a turnaround strategy. These are “new competent management with full authority to make all the required changes, an economically and competitively viable core operation, bridge capital to finance the turnaround [and] a positive attitude and motivated people so that initial turnaround momentum is maintained”.

Given this reality, do we, as a country, stand a good chance of having a turnaround strategy implemented successfully in South Africa Inc.? A lot depends on how those in the GNU will conduct themselves, but one is not too confident.

Firstly, at the helm of the turnaround effort is the ANC, the same organisation that is responsible for the sorry state in which we find ourselves. Even as it fought the recent elections, it could not camouflage its nauseating arrogance. Instead of humbling itself and pleading for a final opportunity to lead the country, ANC leaders told us limply: “Let’s do more, together.” Implicit in that slogan was criticism of the electorate. The country was not where it was, the ANC seemed to suggest, because the people did not work with it to do more, hence the plea for us to join with it this time around to do more!

Really, after 30 years? The legitimate question was why, after three decades in power – during most of which it obtained more than a 60% mandate – the ANC had not seen fit to do the right things? Had it done so, it would not have called on us, in the country’s seventh democratic election, to help it to “do more”. It should have done so from 10 May 1994, when Nelson Mandela was sworn in as this country’s president.

Secondly, we were not asked to give the ANC one more chance in office. Instead, we were told – arrogantly – that the ANC would win the elections comfortably “whether [we] like it or not”. Clearly, we were not begged; instead, we were being instructed to vote for the ANC, as if there were no alternatives available to us. It is no wonder, then, that some who would probably have voted for the ANC stayed away from the polls because their organisation was brimming with confidence that it had already won the elections – even before the polls opened!

Our chances of successfully getting the country turned around are slim precisely because we do not have a change in the country’s top leadership team. The same Ramaphosa, whose fondness of endless consultations and commissions is legendary, remains CEO of SA Inc. Will he be able now, in his final term in office, to exercise the “absolute authority” recommended by Bibeault and others in such a situation, without Luthuli House, COSATU and the SACP peering over his shoulders? Will he finally understand that leadership is not a popularity contest?

Admittedly, it will be more difficult for him now to exhibit any toughness, were he capable of it, since he is obliged to consult his coalition partners and will be wary of alienating the ANC, lest he be recalled like his predecessors. That will complicate, rather than facilitate, our situation.

Yes, we may have more competent management, since talent will be drawn from the different parties constituting a GNU and there is likely to be a new culture of doing things, but I doubt that the ANC component of the Government will have the courage to cull the country’s failing State-owned companies, with those that are a drain on the fiscus sold off or privatised, with the State retaining a stake in them, as it did with Telkom years ago. Will the new shareholder Ministers finally appoint Boards of Directors on merit and leave them to perform their duty, or will they continue to fill them with cadres and pliable individuals while they assume an all-knowing posture and pull all the strings behind the scenes, in what I have characterised as a typical depiction of my anxious-principal theory of the firm?

Although turning around a giant corporation like SA Inc. is difficult because it requires a single-minded determination and a strong sense of purpose, it is still easier and more tolerable than the next stage, which is business rescue. In the case of the former, Ramaphosa and his Cabinet would be fully in charge, but in the case of the latter they would be reduced to implementers of instructions from, say, the International Monetary Fund.

Sadly, nothing that has happened so far suggests that the ANC will do things differently. Even after the disastrous election results, some key individuals within the organisation continue to be motivated by whatever they consider to be in the ANC’s best interests, and not what is in South Africa’s best interests. That explains why they have advocated a coalition with the EFF and Jazob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party, rather than with the DA and the IFP.

It seems that the lesson has yet to be learned. In a speech made a day before he was assassinated, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. made reference to the parable of the good Samaritan. He said that the priest and the Levite who passed by a man who had been attacked by robbers who had stripped him, without helping him, had selfishly worried about their own fate. However, the good Samaritan who stopped to help the man, taking him to an inn and paying for him, had reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help that man, what will happen to him?” King said.

ANC leaders appear desperately to need that kind of re-orientation. Instead of obsessing about what is in the organisation’s best interests, they need to ask themselves what is in South Africa’s best interests. It is only then that they should ask themselves how they can turn that which is in the country’s bests interests also to be in their own interests.

While one understands the rationale for throwing participation in the GNU open to all who wish to be part of it, that remains an effort on the ANC’s part to manage internal differences within it. The more parties it includes in the omnibus of a government, the likelier it is to be unstable. The ANC is simply not bold enough to be in a GNU with the DA and the IFP only, hence its façade of inviting less-than-1% parties to be part of the GNU in order to mute criticism from its internal and external critics. Yet again, this is a decision taken at the expense of the country.

The Patriotic Alliance’s participation in the GNU makes sense only to the extent that it sends a message to coloured compatriots, some of whom consider themselves to have been forgotten people in our democracy, that they also have representation at the highest levels of our Government. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the mooted inclusion of other small parties.

Finally, when he assumed the presidency in 2018, Ramaphosa promised to reduce the size of the country’s bloated Cabinet. After the elections a year later, he appointed a Cabinet of 28 Ministers and 33 Deputy Ministers. We were told that the size of the Cabinet would be reduced further after this year’s elections. However, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula engaged in efforts to manage our expectations a few days ago when he stated that the GNU may lead to the Cabinet size being retained or even increased. Is no promise ever sacrosanct to the ANC?

First-World countries which also have coalition governments have far smaller Cabinets than we do. The very least that Ramaphosa could have done was be to keep his promise to the country and reduce the Cabinet to 20 Ministers and no more than 22 Deputy Ministers. It is only when the Government leads by example in belt tightening that it can be taken seriously.

The author of On The Precipice and The Transformation and Turnaround of Employers’ Federation SEIFSA (in print), Dr Nyatsumba is a turnaround strategy expert, a strategy lecturer at Milpark Business School, a Business Rescue Practitioner, a Chartered Director (SA) and the Managing Director of KMN Consulting.