ANC ACCOUNTABILITY VS FOREIGN ACCOUNTABILITY: COMPARING APPLES AND ORANGES
Last Thursday (28 February), French President Nicholas Sarkozy addressed a joint-sitting of Parliament as part of a two day visit to South Africa.
The Department of Foreign Affairs issued a press brief two days before the visit that stated that “President Mbeki was hosting President Sarkozy within the context of South Africa's priority to strengthen bilateral political, economic and trade relations with France with a view to consolidating North – South relations”.
The brief also elaborated on what the engagements between the Presidents were likely to include. One of the key issues expected to be covered was “co-operation between the two countries in addressing South Africa's energy challenges in the context of the challenges of recent load shedding experienced in the country.”
The announcement that France is giving a R15.5 billion coal fired power station to South Africa as a gesture of friendship and will also be sending a team of French engineers to the country to help resolve the energy crisis proves that this issue was indeed covered. While the investment and expertise elicited from France is great news for the country, key questions that still have not been answered by Government is who has been held accountable for this energy crisis and what action has been taken against those responsible?
Instead, the ANC Government has blatantly sidestepped this issue, arguing that it believed in the “collective accountability” of Cabinet Ministers.
More specifically, when faced with these questions Mbeki replied that he did not understand such thinking:
“one individual sacked somewhere or the other is not going to give you electricity. The thing to do is actually address the challenges that we face”
During the special joint sitting in Parliament on 30 January 2008 to discuss the energy crisis, the Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica followed the line taken by Mbeki by publicly criticising opposition calls to hold those accountable for their failures.
She then went on to argue that South Africa’s power crisis was due to it being part of a “global village” and there was “a high demand” for energy globally.
The Minister stated that "China, in 13 of its provinces, has the same problem. The growth of India and China has had an impact."
Furthermore she pointed out that energy markets in Ontario, Canada, had collapsed. There had been blackouts in the USA and Europe, and Brazil had gone “through the same experience”.
A few days later, Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin echoed Sonjica by stating that having a “tight energy supply” would put South Africa in “exactly the same position as other developing countries”.
The fact that Government has tried to justify its failure to build more power stations by arguing that the country is simply feeling the effects of a worldwide energy shortage comes as no surprise when one looks at its track record when it comes to being accountable to its voters.
(The ANC Government’s refusal to be held accountable is not new and spreads across all spheres - from its failure to deliver basic services to the fact that public officials remain in their positions despite being found guilty of fraud and corruption)
However, if one for a moment decides to humour the ANC Government and take its farcical reasoning seriously, the inevitable questions arises: how does the ANC Government compare to the countries, it is so eager to group itself with regard to the energy crisis, when it comes to holding government officials accountable?
This question is answered by looking at the following instances.
Firstly, there are a number of examples where politicians in other countries have been forced to resign because they failed to do their jobs. One such recent example is South Korea (a developing country as referred to by Erwin) where Education Minister Kim Shin-il resigned on 5 Fe
| Posted on 3/3/2008
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