{"id":676011,"date":"2023-03-28T17:18:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T15:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=676011"},"modified":"2023-03-28T17:22:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T15:22:18","slug":"another-warning-that-south-africa-is-at-risk-of-becoming-a-failed-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/676011\/another-warning-that-south-africa-is-at-risk-of-becoming-a-failed-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Another warning that South Africa is at risk of becoming a failed state"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lord Peter Hain – a member of the United Kindom House of Lords, an anti-apartheid activist, and long-standing friend and ally of democratic South Africa<\/a> – has added to the growing list of prominent persons warning that the country is heading in the direction of becoming a failed state.<\/p>\n

Speaking to PSG Konsult on the group’s Think Big series<\/a>, Hain said that South Africa is troubled, with power cuts, water cuts, and other service delivery failures continuing to plague to country.<\/p>\n

He added that the country struggles with incompetence, as many in high-level positions at state-owned companies – including Eskom, Transnet, the SAPS, SAA and the water system – are unqualified and are bankrupting the country.<\/p>\n

The situation will only worsen if corrupt politicians and incompetent officials are not rooted out, he said, adding that South Africans should ‘rise up’ to tackle the issue.<\/p>\n

However, Hain is not recommending an insurrection, but rather a simple rejection of corruption – such as not paying bribes – as many small acts of rejection would add up to something more significant.<\/p>\n

Adding to this, he said that businesses must not be complicit in tender corruption and not pay bribes to get a contract – even if it leads to job losses.<\/p>\n

“I don’t say it’s easy to do. Obviously, these decisions are difficult, but unless you actually take the tough decisions and maybe make sacrifices in the short-term, you aren’t going to change anything,” he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the nation’s service delivery issues, he said that South Africa does have some things going for it which separate it from other failed states like Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

South Africa has an independent opposition, a mostly-independent judiciary, and an independent media.<\/p>\n

“You do need a credible opposition… You have to fear the smell of defeat as a governing party to keep you true. And, unfortunately, the ANC – with which I have been associated historically for half a century in the anti-apartheid struggle – has betrayed the legacy of Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu, Kathrada and all of those giants.”<\/p>\n

Moreover, it is important for vigorous oppositions to assert themselves in order to challenge the ruling party.<\/p>\n

Despite the numerous issues facing coalition governments in South Africa’s municipalities, Hain said that coalitions should not be ruled out, as parties of goodwill can work together in the national interest – this may have to happen after the 2024 election with it highly unlikely that any party will have a majority.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Hain said that the existence of inquiries – such as the Zondo and Nugent commissions – are signs of a still functioning constitutional democracy, even if they take years to achieve anything meaningful.<\/p>\n

He added that there are senior officials in the country who are trying to address the nation’s issues, including some at the National Prosecuting Authority who are trying to bring people to justice.<\/p>\n

Other South Africans trying to tackle the nation’s problems should be offered protection.<\/p>\n

He said South Africa has talent, the best infrastructure in Africa, and a robust banking system, and contends that it is possible to see a corruption-free South Africa in our lifetime as long as everyone makes a determined push to eradicate it.<\/p>\n

The flow of investment into the country will ultimately depend on the speed at which corruption is eradicated, he said.<\/p>\n

Not new commentary\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many industry experts have noted and warned that South Africa is at risk of becoming a failed state.<\/p>\n

Earlier this mont<\/a>h, MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said that South Africa faces becoming a failed state unless the government effectively tackles the load shedding crisis.<\/p>\n

MTN said that it lost R695 million before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization last year from load shedding.<\/p>\n

Mupita said that the state of disaster gives South Africa \u201ca unique opportunity to accelerate efforts to secure the resilience of critical national infrastructure such as telecommunications\u201d<\/p>\n

The Institute of Risk Management South Africa<\/a> (IRMSA) also said that South Africa risks becoming a failed state if its “lack of decisive, ethical, and courageous leadership\u201d continues and no action is taken to improve and boost economic growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf South Africa continues to experience a continued breakdown of ethical and legal principles, unmanageable societal unrest and breakdown of the rule of law, complete economic collapse becomes almost inevitable,\u201d IRMSA said.<\/p>\n

It added that private and public sector leaders need to urgently develop and executive risk mitigation strategies in response to the nation’s challenges.<\/p>\n

Despite some steps to boost electricity generation in the country via independent power producers, intermittent blackouts continue to discourage investment.<\/p>\n

While there is no set definition of what makes a failed state, broader analysis of countries that have failed define it as a nation that has sovereignty but experiences a breakdown of political power, rule of law and civil society, pointing towards anarchy.<\/p>\n

The Fragile States Index by US think-tank Fund for Peace attempts to quantify the risk of a state failing by looking at indicators across social, political and economic segments.<\/p>\n

These include demographic pressures, loss of skill through the brain drain, and civil unrest among social indicators; inequality and rising poverty in the economic sectors; and a breakdown in public services, human rights, the rule of law and a growing class of factionalised elites when looking at state legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Many of these indicators have worsened for South Africa in recent years.<\/p>\n

The latest index for 2022 ranks South Africa 79th out of 179 countries – where the higher the rank, the higher the risk of state failure. This position is up from 89th in 2021, 115th in 2012, and 132nd in 2007 – its best position on the list.<\/p>\n

Zimbabwe ranks 15th on the index, with Yemen ranked in the top spot.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0 No urgency from government to end load shedding: economist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa is in a terrible state due to several service delivery failures, with warnings that the country is at risk of collapsing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":645565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-676011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676011"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676079,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676011\/revisions\/676079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}