Civil society must have a voice in national dialogue

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has finally confirmed the start of the national dialogue in South Africa in mid-August.

- SIPHAMANDLA ZONDI

He has explained that it will be a people-centred dialogue, and in an open letter former president Thabo Mbeki has called it a citizen-led exercise.

Both are noble ways of thinking about it, but several realities will have to be tackled to realise these ideals.

First, it is important to note that the need for South Africans to engage about the current state of the country and what must be done to fix it, has long been talked about.

Civil society activists have decried the state of our country, the manner in which its economy functions, in particular the fact that it breeds more poverty than shared prosperity, the fact that its public infrastructure is in disarray, and social services including education and health are also falling apart.

Activists have said none of these crises are natural in any way but they result from leadership and governance failures. They know that therefore these problems can be reversed when collective will is used to say no further. We cannot allow our country to be run down, our cities to become infested with preventable problems and our villages and townships to become unliveable.