South Africa’s Vision 2030: ANC needs to do some more preaching

The Vision 2030 National Development Plan (#NDP) released in 2011 is one of the most important policies drafted in South Africa since the dawn of democracy. South Africa’s Vision 2030 document is a 15 year plan outlining strategies to achieve socio-economic transformation and national prosperity. The ANC, government and many supporters outside of the ruling alliance have touted the Vision 2030 as the key strategy for tackling the country’s triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Whilst receiving support from across business, the media and political parties; the NDP still has to overcome internal obstacles within the ANC alliance, particularly opposition from their trade union partner Cosatu, and the South African Communist Party (#SACP).

Current disagreements between ANC alliance partners regarding the NDP may add to perceptions of policy uncertainty in South Africa. If the divergences between alliance partners lead to delays in the implementation of key policy proposals in the NDP this could exacerbate economic and social challenges in South Africa, particularly in education, economic transformation and infrastructure. This would hamper the country’s growth prospects as well as increase the risks of social unrest in the country. The internal criticism of the NDP should, however, also be viewed positively as it presents an opportunity for debate and to fully vet the ideas in the strategy document.

Cosatu has been the main critic of the NDP, labelling it a neo-liberal plan, with some of its affiliates outright rejecting the plan. Numsa, the metal workers’ union, has gone as far as calling the NDP a plagiarised opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) document. The trade union federation has focused on the economic policies of the NDP which it feels do not go far enough in radically transforming the South African economy and threaten to unravel some the progress made in the past 18 years. Some of Cosatu’s main concerns are with the NDP’s take on de-regulation in the labour market, an over emphasis on services over manufacturing, as well as the NDP’s view of  the centrality of SMMEs in future job creation.

The SACP has taken a more cautious approach towards the plan, cautioning outright rejection of the plan as well as acknowledging that the NDP is not set in stone. The SACP, however, does feel that the economic section leans too far in the liberal economic direction and contradicts some present government policies. The SACP also believes that the NDP was drafted with limited input from government departments and has criticised the composition of the National Planning Commission.  The National Planning Commission, which drafted the NDP, was made up of commissioners who came from business, academia and the NGO sector. Whilst there were a few ANC members, including the chairs Trevor Manuel and Cyril Ramaphosa, and Joel Netshitenzhe, the SACP is concerned that these individuals may have not been ideologically neutral when drafting the plan, thus compromising the objectivity of the NDP.

The current disagreements over the NDP may highlight that the ANC and government were premature in adopting the plan. The ANC alliance has a broad range of ideological policy stances and if these have not been taken into consideration during the drafting of the plan, the current schisms are understandable. The ANC’s alliance partners have stated that the NDP may not align with policies adopted by government such as the New Growth Path and the Industrial Policy Action Plan. This all indicates that there is a need for further engagement with alliance partners, as well as other stakeholders outside of the alliance in the trade unions and civil society. Whilst the NDP has not received much criticism outside of the ANC alliance, this is more than likely to occur as the plan is adapted into government policy.  The NDP needs to go beyond the PR exercise that it appears to have done over the past 2 years since its announcement. Whilst generating goodwill in the private sector and amongst opposition parties, it is grassroots organisations linked to groups such as Cosatu which will have to be convinced on the plan.

Originally published on the africapractice blog here: http://www.africapractice.com/blogposts/page/29/?id=3107

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