GENUINE FEDERALISM CAN CUT EXPENSE AND ENABLE DELIVERY

BY PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI MP

As published in
THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT and SUNDAY ARGUS

September 10, 2006


Federalism means different things to different people under different circumstances. Having said this, I admit to having always been a somewhat cautious federalist.

In Europe, a continent consisting of predominantly homogenous nation-states, the project of an ever closer political union, in my mind, amounts to the surrender of national sovereignties to a largely unelected supranational bureaucracy. In the European Union, I would most certainly be an avowed Eurosceptic. In South Africa, however, given our multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, yet one melting pot, I am and have always been a staunch federalist.

My party and I have always believed that South Africa is simply too large and diverse a country to be administered as a unitary state. Federalism serves to preserve regional identities across our vast multi-cultural and multi-lingual territory. We must remember that South Africa's celebrated diversity is the sum of these many identities. Only federalism has the capacity to enhance democratic participation in our country despite these practical drawbacks.

In principle, I have always maintained that the three-tier system of governance comprising national, provincial and local arms of government suits our purpose best. This system brings political decision-making closer to the individual by setting up a network of political structures that compete with the central government and prevent power from being centralised too heavily.

It is for this reason that our quasi-federal model, at least in theory, secures a fragile balance of power. That is also why the IFP ensured during the transition process that provinces were created in principle.

But it is for the very same reasons that the IFP has since often criticised the functions of these provinces in practice. The system we have in South Africa today is a far cry from what the IFP originally envisaged. It is a hybrid where provinces are endowed with all the appearances of a federal system - their own legislatures, executives and administrative capacities - but, at the same time, are accorded almost no policy-making power by the constitution. Indeed, we have the worst of both worlds: the financial expense of duplicated layers of government combined with the political drawbacks of a unitary state.

In spite of this, the IFP notes with concern the media reports about the possible demise of South Africa's nine provinces due to their apparent inefficiency and ineffectiveness. On one level this is an extraordinary announcement. It comes short of a tacit admission that the ruling party, after twelve years in power, has not delivered basic services to the electorate as planned and expected. The IFP welcomes wholeheartedly this unusual display of government introspection, provided it does not lead to the ritual sacrifice of our provinces.

We in the IFP believe that many of the perceived problems of governance at the provincial level are the result of work in progress. The fault does not lie with the system, but rather with its implementation. What we originally wanted out of provinces was smaller, more responsive, accountable and efficient political units in which individuals could participate more directly than in a monolithic unitary government. We did not want legislatures, which largely serve to rubberstamp executive decisions without as much as a mock regard for constructive opposition.

The ruling party is too quick to blame the quasi-federal model for its own failures in service delivery. It is not hard to see why. The ANC has always been dedicated to the notion of South Africa as "one nation", a nation of masses who have apparently reconciled their historical and ethnic differences and who ostentatiously hold the same political opinions. To support federalism means for the ruling party to reject this vision and to deny the very diversity South Africa is made of.

If the ANC today worries about the cost of the quasi-federal system to the service delivery, it never worried about its incidental costs in the past. The seat of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Parliament is a case in point. With two parliamentary venues already in existence in Pietermaritzburg and Ulundi, the ruling party recently proposed the construction of a third complex. The cost of the newly-built parliamentary complex in Mpumalanga (estimated at R600-million) gives one an idea of the proposed waste at the expense of real service delivery in KwaZulu-Natal.

The political benefits of federalism - that is real federalism and one which cuts the distance between the unitary government and the individual while conserving the individual's regional identity - are usually worth the effort and the cost. The answer, therefore, to our current crisis of service delivery is more, not less federalism for South Africa.