Is the "National Dialogue" an election ploy?

The underwhelming response to President Ramaphosa’s proposed National Dialogue is unsurprising.  

The word ‘Dialogue’ implies a meaningful conversation between two or more  people. But for too long Government has been more like an echo chamber, largely impervious to utterances beyond its own monotone.   

In this case talk is certainly not cheap. With a proposed National Dialogue budget of around R700million, we see wasteful expenditure without a genuine intent to listen anymore. No more bottom-up informed and responsive leadership; just top-down autocratic decision making from the self-enriched ruling elite.  

That’s not to say there’s no case for debate around the crucial issues of the day. However, there’s no place for a fake rain dance pretending to listen to all citizens just prior to a municipal election, after failing to deliver on basic service delivery. Service delivery protests are increasing rapidly across the country; the protests are not about a shortage of dialogue.  

The National Dialogue will be made up – at least initially – of around 13 600 ‘dialogues’, according to National Convention Organising Committee chairperson Zwoitwaho Nevhutalu.  It’s easy to see why many question whether so many dialogues will ever coalesce into a coherent national mandate.    

We need to fix the country starting by creating economic value that can translate into employee pay and tax revenue for government to deliver services. We need fewer ineffective dialogues, and more targeted dialogues to really improve what matters most.  

In this regard,  Government should also be guided by its own success in the energy and logistics sectors, where private sector concerns were addressed through targeted interventions. This saw impressive results such as a reduction in load shedding and reduced bottlenecks at our major container terminals. 

In these cases, the voice of business was heard loud and clear, prompting meaningful outcomes.  

In the same vein, the Cape Chamber is facilitating a Systemic Dialogue Network (SDN) led to systemically identify key impediments to growth and explore options to address them. Recent dialogues around impediments such as crime and investor confidence produced a list of critical key points, to be addressed by those responsible. In this way we improve step by step .   

Talk doesn’t have to be cheap, but it needs to be effective. 

John Lawson
CEO of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry