As one who has dealt and continues to deal with evidence, and has been immersed in development communication, I had to think about what was going on in the mind of Premier Sbu Ndebele of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) when he launched a development language that decades later echoed on the tongues of citizens.
This, when many a slogan, including our most revered Reconstruction and Development Programme, remains a distant memory.
After repeated attempts by KZN Premier Senzo Mchunu requesting that I, as the then Statistician General, conduct a survey looking at the views and satisfaction of citizens, Mchunu finally had his way. In 2016, I conducted this survey in KZN.
The initial reason for refusing to conduct this survey to the exclusion of all other provinces was based on committing to the principle of non-asymmetry of data in public affairs. But when Macingwane threatened to conduct his own survey, the risks to the statistics system were palpable.
What remained unique in the survey was the depth of language development from Sbu, to Khabasela, to Macingwane, to another Macingwane to Zikalala and Dube-Ncube remains very impressive.
Operation Sukuma Sakhe is now the language of development in KZN.
It is anchored in development theory and practice and has remained the central piece of an attempt at the district development model implementation. Its core features are that it has been sustained from premier to premier and “there is no johnny-come-lately with a new broom".
In a survey that StatsSA runs for KZN, a significant number of citizens proportionately associate with Operation Sukuma Sakhe as an operational development language. Many a politician has indulged in self-criticism of the ANC as lack of communication, including on load shedding.
One wonders what more communication there can be, when darkness day in and day out communicates our failings. Hankering after spin helps no one. A lot has to be learnt from KZN in Operation Sukuma Sakhe in the development of communication.
The KZN StatsSA-run citizen satisfaction survey is part and parcel of development communication.
Macingwane Senzo Mchunu, the premier of KZN, insisted on the need for the survey to direct response from public concerns on development challenges and build on Operation Sukuma Sakhe.
Provinces, in copycat fashion, have developed development slogans – none of those had the development communication qualities of KZN and they faded and fell by the wayside with the entry and exit of politicians. And with these changes, development went under.
But with KZN, there has been a steady rise, even in times of perturbations, of Operation Sukuma Sakhe as a development language and a mobilising philosophy. You cannot communicate yourself out of failure as many a minister in the ANC tends to think. So, by communicating what you are doing with Eskom and the work streams does not do much. The best communication is the persistent cold comfort of the darkness of load shedding. No society can believe that they see light in darkness.
Ndabezinhle Sibiya provoked my thinking through his frank and open article on the evolution and decline of violence in KZN. A balanced reflection on KZN’s oft tumultuous development path towards stability prompted me to reflect on why StatsSA's Operation Sukuma Sakhe so stood out in the survey.
Cape Verdean agricultural engineer Amilcar Cabral famously said, “People’s fight for material benefits and darkness in our homes and community is a clear indicator of deep failure that no amount of so-called communication will resolve. Night is different from day. ”
Constant availability of electricity from Eskom has made us forget that this reality is real. Only when load shedding persisted have we awoken to this difference. In our moment of great darkness, we know and understand the value and beauty of light.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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