By Hopewell Radebe – SANF 04 no 33
The re-election of President Thabo Mbeki amidst high expectations to address a number of national and regional socio-economic and political challenges calls for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to further scrutinise their development plan, as South Africa begins its second decade of multiracial democracy.
Expectations from South Africa’s regional neighbours are high especially around trade. In his victory acceptance speech, Mbeki stated that “whatever our own problems, we will never forget our international obligations to the peoples of Africa and the rest of the world, including those of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia, Zimbabwe and Western Sahara.”
President Mbeki was sworn in on 27 April at Union Buildings in Pretoria at a ceremony that coincided with commemorations to mark the first 10 years of democracy following the official demise of apartheid in 1994.
South Africa’s economic future is increasingly dependent on the viability and the stability of the politics and economy of its neighbours. In addition to addressing the major internal challenge of unemployment, skewed land ownership, crime, among others, President Mbeki plans to pay as much attention to regional trade integration in the context of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as he has done in soliciting foreign direct investment from the international community.
Other leaders in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have challenged South Africa to take greater responsibility in correcting current trade imbalances between the country and its southern African neighbours.
“If we get to 2010 with the same structure of intra-SADC trade, where South Africa accounts for over 50 percent of intra-SADC exports, and less than 10 percent of intra-SADC imports, we will have extremely difficult negotiations for a SADC customs union,” said the chairperson of SADC, President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, when he launched the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), SADC’s blueprint for long term development, in March.
Mbeki’s new term of office thus provides him with five years to ensure that targets set in various regional agreements, among which is the trade protocol, and also those under the RISDP, are achieved.
The RISDP document contains broad goals for achieving development and economic growth, alleviation of poverty, improving quality of life of the people of southern Africa and support for the socially disadvantaged groups through regional integration.This is particularly important since the ANC has also identified poverty reduction as the overarching priority in its integration agenda.
Eddy Maloka, director of the Africa Institute of South Africa, says Mbeki will continue to court foreign direct investors at the same time encouraging action within the region. “The president has complained in the past about lack of progress on trade integration in the continent and especially within the region,” he says. The government has warned local businesspeople engaged in expansion projects in the region to tread cautiously to avoid fuelling negative perceptions and bad blood within the SADC community. However, Maloka says many opportunities have been lost due to sentiments in the region that South Africa maybe the modern economic imperialist. He says it is not just up to South Africa to stimulate the regional economy, other countries have an added responsibility to improving political conditions. Nonetheless, he acknowledges progress especially now that regional leaders are no longer divided by conditions of war in Angola and the DRC.
The leaders have therefore begun to focus on finding implementation strategies in their plans to diversify their regional economies through trade and development. They are now talking about productivity and competitiveness as well as liberalisation of factors of production. The African Union’s NEPAD suggests regional synergy which emphasizes inclusive participatory national economic processes, good corporate ethics, “underpinned by the principles of openness, integrity and accountability, and the enforcement of internationally accepted relevant codes and standards.”(SARDC)
