MARK BARNES: Stop whining and get busy in the streets

So, the government of national unity (GNU) is the new game in town. The people have spoken. We’re done and dusted, right? Not so fast. We’ve qualified for the race, but we haven’t started running it yet.

The GNU was born of a need to find solutions, not to win fights, but now you’re either in or you’re out. If you’re still playing yesterday’s blame game, if your focus is division not unity, then don’t pitch up to the meetings, don’t participate in the committees. Stay home and shut up.

GNUs self-regulate under contracted common purpose; no more comments from the peanut gallery. We’ve already agreed on the need for public-private partnerships, competent executives and no stealing. If you don’t like that, lump it. 

Let’s stop talking the big stuff and start doing the small stuff. For the spirit of GNU to survive and thrive we’ll need buy-in on the ground. The GNU’s good intentions, hard-fought compromises and alliances will prove fragile unless we can backfill them with real initiatives and personal buy-in, driven by personal experiences.

We need to believe. We need evidence — incremental, measurable, bankable evidence. We actually need to feel the change in our personal space. People will all start picking up litter if someone leads the way. Before you know it it’ll become a habit. People are defined by their habits, good and bad, and a country is nothing more or less than the aggregate of its peoples. 

Failure can either be a refuge we gather under, safe in our numbers, or it can be a place we escape from. So no more talk of broad-based, macro-level problems. We need to stop talking about unemployment, poverty and inequality; stop going on about GDP growth or the repo rate. We can’t forever be analysing the petrol price, the energy availability factor and the trade deficit. We must spend more time focusing on us, our primal needs here at home. 

Get out of the boardrooms and committee meetings and planning commissions and workshops. If instead we get busy in the streets we’ll have less time to whine about what’s not being done. We’ll build higher self-esteem and we’ll be happier — that’s the silent force of productivity.

Don’t focus on the claim that 81% of our grade 4s can’t read for meaning (I’ve personally seen evidence to the contrary). Focus rather on replacing pit latrines with flushing toilets in their schools so the children can concentrate on learning instead of worrying, on an empty stomach, about having to endure an inhumane toilet experience — and make it so they arrive at school with a full stomach in the first place. 

To do this we’ll have to understand and address funding, money, the truth of our various entity economic models and the social and politically driven bad habits they have to operate in. Some economic models aren’t working, and some never will. Get to the truth and deal with it.

Somebody has to pay for services — either the consumer or government. Decide who, and then either enforce that or face widespread bankruptcy. Move on and away from past failure. If an entity can’t bear or service debt, capitalise it and start again — with structures and mindsets that can foreseeably achieve the desired outcomes.

Create vested interest. How about consumption tax instead of income tax, to encourage aligned behaviour? Joburg’s electricity load reduction is driven by excess demand, while national load-shedding is driven by a supply shortage. I can manage my demand and be rewarded. Supply less so, that’s government’s problem and it must fix it. 

Devolve executive authority, capability, accountability and problem management to the lowest, closest level of service delivery where results are felt. Neighbourhood WhatsApp groups sometimes prove more effective than council meetings. 

We’ve at last arrived at a place where the interests of the country can take precedence over party politics. A big thanks to those politicians who made that possible, but now that everyone who matters is on the bus, let’s get going.

• Barnes is an investment banker with more than 35 years’ experience in various capacities in the financial sector.