• "those who oppose the abolition of provinces speak as if the provinces had always been there, and no other institutional permutation would be possible."
• "Fifteen years into our democracy, SA is still organised around the spatial geography of apartheid, with the Eastern Cape preserved for the Xhosa, KwaZulu-Natal for the Zulus, Limpopo for the Venda and Pedi, North West for the Tswana and Gauteng for the Sotho"

Opinion | By Xolela Mangcu

THE debate on provinces has been proceeding in a quintessentially South African way — in “either/or” terms. The first argument against the abolition of provincial governments is a technocratic one, also a quintessentially South African approach to public life. It says that we need not bother abolishing the provinces because the monetary savings from abolishing the legislatures would be minuscule. This is because the government would still have to pay the salaries of provincial employees.

The second argument is that the existence of elected officials provides a check over the provincial bureaucracy. In other words, the political parties — fearing wrath of the voting public — would make sure that the bureaucrats do not misbehave.

Third, it is suggested that provincial governments provide a form of political representation for minorities. The fact that the ruling African National Congress does not control all of the provinces is proof that the provinces are a check against majoritarianism in our political system.

Fourth, those who oppose the abolition of provinces speak as if the provinces had always been there, and no other institutional permutation would be possible.

Let us examine each of these arguments in turn but, in doing so, I would urge us to take off our technocratic blinkers for a second.

As for the first argument, I would simply suggest that public life is not just about rands and cents. But even if you did a rands-and-cents analysis, I am sure it would soon emerge that the costs associated with provincial legislatures go beyond just salaries, to all the privileges that go with being an elected official — the maintenance, entertainment, travel, cars, housing, offices, maintaining the National Council of Provinces, and so forth.

Regarding the second argument, elected officials are not a check on the bureaucracy. They are often the people who aid and abet the corruption through buddy-buddy networks that run deep into these bureaucracies. Why do you think the headlines about corruption are always about the elected officials?

The social costs also extend to the opportunity costs or what we may call foregone development opportunities. For the most part, these elected officials represent regional interests. That at least has been the case in the Eastern Cape for a long time, with different political factions representing different geographic regions — mainly Port Elizabeth, the former Transkei, and the Ciskei. Add to that the political factions that were aligned with either Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma , and you ask yourself where these people would find the time to provide leadership on development issues to the provincial bureaucracy.

I am sure that there are econometric whizz kids out there who could quantify this into rands and cents, but it is the damage to the social fabric that cannot be that easily quantified that worries me, hence my plea to go beyond technocracy.

And that brings me to the third argument — that the provinces are good for political representivity. That is true if we confuse political representivity with ethnic balkanisation. Fifteen years into our democracy, SA is still organised around the spatial geography of apartheid, with the Eastern Cape preserved for the Xhosa, KwaZulu-Natal for the Zulus, Limpopo for the Venda and Pedi, North West for the Tswana and Gauteng for the Sotho.

To be sure, there are countries — such as Ethiopia — where ethnic stratification is the basis of political representivity. That was never the vision behind our struggle. I at least come from the One Azania, One Nation school of thought. Okay, we lost the name, but the vision behind it was always that we need to create an inclusive society that recognises our ethnic diversity but does not make it the basis of political competition. From Nigeria to Kenya, we have seen the dangers of ethnicity in politics.

I know some would say that sometimes it’s better to separate people. It may be one thing to separate people into different countries, but separate ethnic identities in one country is just a recipe for ghastly conflict.

Finally, we need to do away with the pretence that we always had provincial legislatures. Does anyone remember the days of the Transvaal or the Cape Provincial Administration? Why should a country of less than 50-million people have nine provincial governments, some of which are demonstrably unworkable? Surely we could have a model of regional or provincial administrations that cut across ethnic boundaries. --- Busiiness Day

- Mangcu is affiliated to the University of Johannesburg and is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.