The private sector still needs to step up

A coalition government won't fix past failures in South Africa, says Lawrence Hamilton, South Africa-UK Bilateral Research Professor in Political Theory for Wits University and the University of Cambridge. Thus, we can expect the private sector to play a bigger role in delivering power, transport and security, he adds.

- Lawrence Hamilton

"To help save the planet, governments across the globe are choosing to adopt sustainable policies and encourage (or coerce) the private sector to do the same. Given the climate crisis, most responsible governments are focusing on finding every possible means to meet existing needs without sacrificing the planet to meet the needs of future generations.

In South Africa things are different. Although the country has presented guidelines for a just transition to greener energies, this has not been out of choice, but out of necessity. It is mainly due to the collapse of the country’s energy infrastructure, not government leadership or a change of mind among the coal lobby.

State-owned enterprises, specifically in electricity, rail and ports, are a legacy of the apartheid state and South Africa’s post-apartheid settlement. Being state-owned isn’t a problem, as long as an enterprise is run well. But in South Africa the government has failed to run them well. And failure in these areas has resulted in a turn to the private sector – either to help fix electricity, rail and the ports, or to fill the vacuum in other ways.

Even where government has adopted sustainable policies, the private sector has become the major driver of this shift, further worsening inequality.

The problem with greater private sector involvement is the sector’s profit motive. Not only are private sector-driven solutions only for those who can pay, they also end up driving public priorities. Thus, those who can pay also drive ‘development’, instead of government deciding in the interests of society as a whole (now and in the future). This is the reverse of how things should be.