We don’t need another pow-wow; we know what our problems are and how to fix them

In his inauguration address in June President Cyril Ramaphosa committed his new administration to inviting political parties, unions, business and all of civil society to a national dialogue to map a way forward for the country, a call he repeated when announcing his cabinet a week later.

“We will seek”, he said, “as we have done at so many important moments in our history, to forge a social compact to realise the aspirations of our national development plan.”

That clarion call has now been joined by foundations named after the who’s who of the anti-apartheid struggle — Thabo Mbeki, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, among many others — who warned in a joint statement that the “parlous state” of the country was “a ticking time bomb which must be disarmed”.

The concerns, I guess, come from a good place. So one needs to be careful not to be too cynical about it. But we sometimes like to complicate things in this country. There's actually nothing complex or intricate about our situation. Our problems — and their cause or source — are well-known. They've been analysed ad nauseam over the years. We've just had an election where every political party proffered competing solutions, and voters freely made their choice. So where does this sudden drumbeat for another interminable pow-wow come from? Why now, when the country has been drifting towards the abyss for close to a decade? And it’s in peril not because we don't know what needs to be done. The solutions have been staring us in the face all along. It is the political will that is lacking.

The only thing that's different this time is the fact that the ANC has lost its majority after 30 long years of misrule, which has led to a hung parliament. And some people may be miffed by that. But that should not be seen as a calamity. In fact, it should be cause for celebration. The cobwebs are slowly clearing. The penny has finally dropped. Our democracy is maturing.

This country should be done talking. It's past time we put our shoulder to the wheel and get the job done. The templates are all there

One can perhaps understand where the foundations are coming from, and their decision to latch on to Ramaphosa's proposed lavish gabfest with some alacrity. After all, they're in the talking business. They organise meetings and pursue worthwhile causes that are a great help in knitting together the fabric of society. That's admirable. But this country should be done talking. It's past time we put our shoulder to the wheel and get the job done. The templates are all there.

We had talks in spades during the Codesa negotiations, followed by the drafting of the new constitution. In fact Codesa was a culmination of years of painful struggles, debates and competing political philosophies now encapsulated in a constitution, a document that's not only the bedrock but also the signpost of where society should be going. It's therefore incredible that, after so many years of ideation and cogitation, some of our serious minds still think we should be wasting even more time and money pontificating at costly talkshops.

People seem to be misdirecting their energies. The problem is not that we don't know what needs to be done. We’ve simply lost our way. The government has failed us. It is as simple as that, and that doesn't require a national dialogue to figure out. Ramaphosa seems to be presenting the much-touted national dialogue as a key plank in his government of national unity, probably as a way of getting his disparate cabinet speaking with one voice. But he's the problem. He needs to man up; grow some cojones.

He doesn't need any input from anybody on what needs to be done to fix what ails the country. He’s earned a reputation — and derision in some quarters — for his eagerness to appoint a task team for every minor problem under the sun. He has all the diagnosis he needs. The Zondo commission, for instance, sat for four years at a cost of almost R1bn and its report is lying somewhere gathering dust — and some of its contents have apparently mysteriously vanished. Just goes to show how much they care. It was revealed recently that Ramaphosa has spent R44m on imbizos, which, his office said, was proof of a caring government. Compassion evidently doesn't come cheap.

The ANC NEC emerged from three days of head-scratching to figure out why it lost the elections. That should provide another wealth of information for its leader. But in fact they shouldn't have bothered. They could have asked the millions loitering in the streets looking for work; the thousands maimed and murdered by criminals every year; the millions who live in intolerable squatter communities; the commuters who can't get to work on time because the trains aren't running at all. The list of the victims of this government's misrule is endless. And there's no need to now start casting about for a silver bullet. There isn't one. A national dialogue will deliver nice speeches and the food will be good, and nothing more.

What does need fixing though is parliament. It’s broken. It's become a circus where any clown can simply saunter in and be accorded the respect of an honourable member of the house. These people need to be elected, not appointed. The electoral process is being flagrantly and shamelessly abused.

Aaron Motsoaledi made a hash of reforming the system. But that was never his intention anyway. The new home affairs minister obviously has a lot of pressing issues in his in-tray, but will, with new eyes, hopefully treat this issue with the absolute priority it deserves. Ideally it would need an inquiry, preferably headed by a judge or a constitutional expert, who'd look at the issues without any political bias and come up with an electoral system that would effectively enable the electorate to hold their public representatives accountable.

It is in fact a truly functional parliament, not some expensive sideshow, that should be the cradle or crucible of the debates shaping the future of this country.