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CGF ARTICLES, OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

The risk of governance failure: South Africa 2014 (2014-10-22)

Article by Terrance M. Booysen

A continent known for opportunity
For many centuries Africa has been known as a continent where only the ‘toughest of tough’ survive.  
Whilst many of the first indigenous African inhabitants mastered their survival mechanisms to live off the land and survive the harsh and dangerous elements known about Africa, many of their counterpart early pioneers from distant shores battled to survive.  They had much to learn.  Of course many stories have been told through the ages about the high-risks and complexities surrounding Africa; expectedly many have had sad, even tragic endings whilst others the exact opposite.

Like in the bygone era, Africa -- more particularly South Africa -- continues to attract people’s attention.  In those days the attraction seemingly was not only because of South Africa’s vast fertile lands, or the beauty of its fauna and flora.  As diamonds were first discovered by prospectors in South Africa in the 1870’s, followed by gold in the Witwatersrand in 1886, so began what was known as the Mineral Revolution.  It was more or less at this time that South Africa took central stage as the country began to develop at a faster pace than its African counterparts.  With the scurry of all sorts of prospectors at the time -- both locally and from afar – South Africa quickly needed to create a permanent workforce to extract the mineral riches.  South Africa was then rapidly transformed from a set of agrarian states to a unified industrial nation.  Indeed the discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa had significant effects on the history of South Africa, both politically and economically.

South Africa’s young democracy
South Africa continues to be a country with massive contrasts.  Since the dawn of its democracy in 1994, the country has had to -- in relative terms -- mature and deal rapidly with many of its challenges in order for it to trade on a sustainable basis with its global trading partners. Indeed, South Africa has many positives, and these should not be ignored given the fact that many South African citizens tend to be over critical of the country and its current direction.  After all is said and done, a person should not ignore that South Africa is the youngest democracy in the world and there is, quite expectedly, a lot of work to be done as the country moves ahead.

Given the fact that the previous South African white-elitist government only took care of the white minority  segment of the country’s population, one must expect -- considering the years of abandonment of the black population -- that a massive, collective effort is required to rebuild the country on many of its neglected fronts.

Some of the positives
While this article focusses upon the risk of governance failing in South Africa, we must acknowledge the many achievements our ‘rainbow’ nation has accomplished over the last two decades, under the democratically elected ANC (African National Congress) government.  Besides our strong heritage, including our world-class Constitution and independence of our courts; we are a nation who can be proud of our 1994 peaceful democratic political transition.  Indeed the country has an abundance of rich mineral deposits, including a vibrant and young workforce that needs to be unlocked to allow South Africa to become a truly major economic powerhouse.
  
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