In a month, President Cyril Ramaphosa will mark two years in the presidency. Let’s be clear; it’s “mark”, not celebrate.
While the extent of damage wrought by a decade of state capture has become more apparent over the past two years, not much has yet been achieved by the “Sixth Administration”. You can pick your explanation for the lack of action.
It may be, as his critics continually carp, that the paralysis is because Ramaphosa is an ideological shapeshifter, more committed to holding together a fracturing ANC alliance than saving a sinking nation. Or, as his admirers stoutly maintain, that it is a tactical truce, as he tries first to inoculate against a palace coup before sallying forth against the forces of darkness.
It doesn’t really matter, because pressures are escalating so quickly that action has become unavoidable. The imminent collapse of a range of state-owned entities (SOEs) means neither prevarication nor stealth is any longer an option.
The battleground that Ramaphosa has chosen is not Eskom - which would be less of a battle than an entire war - but South African Airways (SAA), where the government has refused yet another bailout.
It’s a canny decision.
Inflation is running at less than 5%, SAA management has offered a 5.9% salary increase - already unaffordable - while workers are demanding 8%. To get it, they are willing not only to destroy SAA but are, through secondary strike action, targeting the entire aviation sector.
The strike is a strategically poor move. Cross-party public opinion is outraged that the overpaid workers, of an overstaffed entity, can be so out of touch with the economic misery that most South Africans are having to deal with.
Unlike Eskom, SAA is surplus to requirements. SAA, is “not too big to fail”, as Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan told a New York investment conference last week.
SAA is a vanity project, not an essential service. While it might warm our hearts to see our flag carrier travelling the world, its sale or closure would end the financial haemorrhaging, with R28 billion in accumulated losses over the past dozen years. And it is a hole that it is digging deeper, at an increasingly frenetic pace, with a R500 million-a-month revenue shortfall, to which the strike adds another R50m, every single day the carrier is not flying.
SAA is not only not too big to fail, it is also simply too bloated to survive. It has more than 10000 staff, working out at an annual wage bill of R610000 per person. That’s a person-to-plane ratio of about 200 to one, compared with the benchmarks of 120-130 to one for international routes, and 90-100 to one for domestic routes.
Ramaphosa, always cautious about his face being linked to an unpopular move, has allowed the Public Enterprises and Labour ministers to set the scene for this battle royale. The survival of his administration now depends on the ANC government triumphing over its union partner.
For the first time, natural ideological alliances are not as clear as they have been. The SA Communist Party (SACP) appears to be uncomfortably ambivalent, not automatically siding with the unions as it used to.
So far, it has restrained itself, doing no more than criticising the “cavalier” approach of SAA management to the strike. Instead, it says SAA should engage in “meaningful consultation” to resolve matters “amicably”.
These platitudes are not the normal fire and brimstone of SACP rhetoric. Clearly, the SACP is waiting to see which way the winds of victory are blowing, before it commits its forces.
If Ramaphosa wins the confrontation with the SAA strikers, it will immeasurably improve his chances for further reforms. If he fails, at best, SA’s state of drift will continue. At worst, he will be recalled at the next leadership conference and SA’s only hope of a reformed ANC government could be permanently lost.
Ramaphosa is about to be blooded in battle and the events of the next week or so will determine whether he attends his second-anniversary party in presidential finery or sackcloth and ashes.
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The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of Independent Media.