Development, Part 9a
Trevor Manuel
The National
Planning Commission:
Draft National
Development Plan
The South African National
Planning Commission (NPC) handed over its draft National Development Plan (NDP)
to the President of the Republic, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, on 11 November 2011.
This post, now adapted, was
added to the CU “Development” course during its previous iteration on “CU-Africa” on 10 March 2012.
Abridged, this post can still serve the instructive purpose of introducing the
NDP process, as well as introducing one chapter of the draft, namely Chapter 3
on Economy and Employment (November 2011 draft).
On 15 August 2013 the actual
plan came out, called “Plan 2030: Our
future - make it work”. Links are given below to the new document. But we
will continue to refer to the draft for this item, this time, so as to retain
the points of discussion as they arose in time. In any case, the NDP is still
being revised, and it will continue to be revised.
Our purpose is to observe the
thinking that informed the process. We note that the November 2011 draft
closely followed the format of the July 2011 “Diagnostic” document.
In the three-page “popular plan” version of the
NDP draft, the NPC stated that after a three-month consultation period
(November 2011 to February 2012) the plan was to be turned into reality. This
did not happen. Nor is it ever likely to happen in this literal sense, because
what we posted on the CU-Africa in 2012 has turned out to be true: This was
never an executable plan. Here follows more of what we wrote then:
The NDP is apolitical and
a-historical. It makes no reference to the Freedom Charter or to the National
Democratic Revolution. It does not mention the world’s first-ever National Plan
– Lenin’s tremendous GOELRO
Plan, adopted by revolutionary Russia in 1920. Nor does the NDP make
any critical comment on the political philosophy of development. Searches of
the entire NPC web site, including the 444 pages of the plan, for the words
“Lenin”, “Socialism”, “Dialectic”, “Slovo” or “Mao” return nil results. The
term “Capital”, on the other hand, returns 130 results. Try it yourself. Google
for “[selected
term]” site:www.npconline.co.za.
Instead of doing what we have
done in our CU course on Development, the draft NDP applies the logic of
“therapy to victim” (T2V).
NDP not dialectical
Which means that problems, or
sicknesses, are “diagnosed” in terms of received wisdom, or “common sense”. Of
course, the solutions for those problems are predetermined by the definition of
the problems/sicknesses that the “diagnosis” selects, or invents.
Subsequent progress is
imagined as inevitably gradual, incremental or marginal, and not as dialectical,
or revolutionary.
The product of this kind of
reasoning is eclectic, and it refuses to take on board any acknowledged, as
opposed to tacit, “meta-narrative”. In other words, it refuses overt politics.
It just sees South Africa as sick, and it sees itself, the National Planning
Commission, as South Africa’s technocratic healer. It sees SA as being under
doctor’s orders, with the NPC in the role of bossy doctor.
The result of this “T2V” can
only possibly be a “best practice”; that is, a cleaned-up, marginally-improved
version of the status quo. It cannot
possibly be a revolutionary break. Unlike the National Democratic Revolution,
the NDP is not even a preparation for revolutionary, qualitative change
National Development Plan
Downloadable
“On 15th August 2012, the revised National Development
Plan 2030 entitled, “Our future-make it work” was handed to the President
at a special joint sitting of Parliament. All political parties represented in
Parliament expressed support for the NDP.” – NPC web site
Here are some links:
·
NDP downloadable
from http://www.npconline.co.za/pebble.asp?relid=25
·
SACP’s May Day
message, 2013 is at: http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=3963
·
SACP discussion
document (click for link): “Let’s not monumentalise
the NDP” (May 2013)
The National Development
Plan in chapters:
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The Plan (NDP 2030):
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Chapter 3 on Economy and Employment
Herewith, attached, is the National Development
Plan draft Chapter 3 on Economy and Employment.
The chapter begins:
“Achieving
full employment, decent work and sustainable livelihoods is the only way to
improve living standards and ensure a dignified existence for all South
Africans.
“This will be
achieved by expanding the economy to absorb labour
“We can
reduce the unemployment rate to 6 percent by 2030.”
The National Development Plan
is a gradualist plan, and not a revolutionary plan. It works from the unspoken
assumption that what we have would be good enough, if only it was improved. In
this chapter, 2030 looks very much like 2012, only with some of the bad bits
made a bit better.
The chapter begins with some
projections and some generalities. After page 7, it goes into “Employment
scenarios”. This is so-called scenario planning, which is a kind of dreaming.
Is that bad? You be the judge.
Then the chapter proceeds to
“challenges”.
Thereafter, from pages 15 to
45 the document is mainly prophecy, or declaration. Sentences are written as
“need to be”, “would be” and “will be”, without much sense of difference
between these. It is not altogether clear whether this is a guide or a model,
or an intended set of laws.
There is a Conclusion on the
last three pages (49-48).
Is this chapter from the NDP
on employment, just a wish-list? You be the judge.
And if it is a wish-list, is
that bad?
Yes, it would be bad, if the
wish-list is taken as a plan, because a wish is something less than a plan.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: National
Plan, C3, Economy and Employment – extracts.
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