Governance, complacency and the generational ledger

IN HANS Christian Andersen's timeless fable, the emperor’s procession glitters with splendour only in imagination.

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His courtiers, sycophants and onlookers nod approvingly, unwilling to admit what is plainly visible: that the emperor is, in truth, unclothed. It takes the innocent honesty of a child to break the illusion.

South Africa, too, marches in such a parade. The robes shimmer with acronyms, commissions and summits; the crowd applauds resilience even as data exposes fragility. The parade’s rhythm endures through ceremonies of promise and policies without consequence, while the nation’s foundations strain under the quiet weight of unfulfilled governance.

Governance, at its simplest, is principled stewardship: transparency, meritocracy and accountability in action. Yet it has become the unseen tailor of our times, invoked, costed and praised but rarely enforced. The numbers speak with an honesty no rhetoric can obscure.

According to Statistics South Afri-cas second-quarter report for 2025, overall unemployment remains at 33.2%, with youth joblessness at an alarming 62.2% and women constituting roughly 60% of the unemployed population. GDP growth hovers around 0.8% and the Gini coefficient at 0.63 ranks among the world’s most unequal. Transparency International's 2024 index assigns the country a score of 41 out of 100, reflecting the erosion of institutional integrity.

The thesis is simple: South Africa's challenge is not ignorance of what must be done but complacency with how little is done. The emperor is not alone; the crowd includes us all.

Every society constructs myths to survive itself. Ours is the myth of progress: the belief that policy by announcement equals transformation. Since 1994, an orchestra of frameworks has promised equity and growth, yet their music fades before the first chorus of implementation.