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Cees Bruggemans responds: Blue, black or purple – ANC’s not listening

Off the back of Cees Bruggeman’s article yesterday, some social media feedback caused a stir with his keyboard. The article looked at government’s growth policy, and in a nutshell, he said it doesn’t exist. The feedback was encouraging but one reader said the sad reality is that because Cees is white, it will fall on deaf ears. Cees’ fingers jumped to it and he created the below response. And again in true Cees style, his argument – it doesn’t matter what the colour of the person making the argument is, as the ANC government is not listening anyway. – Stuart Lowman

By Cees Bruggemans*

I wrote a Short Note entitled “SA govt stuck in the past, missing the future… at what cost?” that invited quite a bit of comment after Alec Hogg gave it some publicity.

One pleasing Twitter response came from Kev Askew who wrote “I have yet to read a more aptly put few paragraphs”. Tx Kev, appreciate.

But there was another type of response as well, namely: “It’s a great piece but – as @ceesbruggemans is white – it will sadly fall on deaf government ears…”

Thanks for this compliment too, but I think there is a fallacy here that needs to be highlighted.

That I may be ignored by the present government, by all means. But if the writer had been blue, black or purple he/she would also have been ignored.

This raises the question under what circumstances this particular message wouldn’t be ignored?

That the present government crew is mostly convinced of its own correctness has its origin in its ideological, populist and traditionalist ideals. That crew will never buy into the message per the written piece, no matter written by who.

But that should not be the central question.

Rather, could it be possible that the present crew does not represent all those in the governing party? Secondly, could it be that failure will strengthen the call for reform?


World-class reformers are currently not in charge. If such people, however, who can be found in all ranks, including the governing party, were to gain power, how would they approach the legacy of failure left to them by the present crew?


Here there is a choice of extremes, those yet more ideological or populist, and those best described in the tradition of social democracy as observed in the more successful parts of Europe, but also at times past in the ranks of the ANC.

To keep it simple, a shift to the far left or back to the more or less centre.

We know, I think, what the far left would think of pieces like mine. As to any central tendencies of the social democracy tradition, they wouldn’t need to visit my pieces. They have already proved quite able to define what is wrong, when going by some public utterances. We know in private there is much unhappiness with the drift of things. Would a future crew from these ranks do things very differently than what is entertaining us today?

That process, I think, has already begun, as I have mentioned on occasion over the past 18 months. There is certainly a groundswell even if it doesn’t want to show itself too openly, one guesses from a healthy sense of self-preservation and from fear of victimization.

And so we wait to see how things will shape in the battle for the soul of the party, what deals will be done to grease the path to power, and what will be done when they get there.

Wholesale nationalization? Or a shift to far greater efficiency and a successful growth strategy than seen so far, but with restitution and compensation remaining in secondary roles, prominent but not as spoilers, instead as outcomes?

The future presents itself as a spectrum of choices. The electorate, and the elite, need to speak, and do, and they will decide what we will get. So far the choices haven’t been particularly encouraging for future generations of outsiders, those barely or not at all participating in the full fruits of our achieved modernity (the majority of economic participants).

Perhaps future choices may be wiser. After all, it remains a learning curve, even if by now it is already hundreds of years old.

* Cees Bruggemans is consulting economist at Bruggemans & Associates

* For more in-depth business news, visit biznews.com or simply sign up for the daily newsletter.

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