ANC corruption and incompetence has ruined South Africa’s reputation

South Africa is no longer viewed open by the rest of the world in a favourable light, with the goodwill the country enjoyed in the 2000s replaced by characterisations of a stagnant economy, rampant corruption, and crime. 

The goodwill created by Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki in the first 15 years after Apartheid has been squandered in the past decade. 

While South Africa enjoyed good moral standing in the world until recently and was known as a fast-growing emerging economy, it has declined sharply in the eyes of foreign investors. 

The country’s economy has stagnated, growing at an average annual rate of 0.8% for the past decade, and it has become synonymous with state capture and crime. 

This has significantly limited foreign investment in the country, stifling economic growth and leaving South Africans worse off in real terms than they were a decade ago. 

Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt outlined the shift that has occurred in recent years, saying it will be difficult to reverse. 

The main issue in the eyes of investors is that South Africa’s economy has stagnated, leaving little opportunity for significant returns on investment in the country. 

“If you go back twenty or thirty years ago, the South African economy was by far the biggest economy on the African continent, and today it is much smaller relative to Africa as a whole,” Roodt told the State of the Nation podcast. 

South Africa is now the third-largest economy on the continent, behind Nigeria and Egypt, which have enjoyed much faster economic growth since 2010. 

Such slow economic growth has significant ramifications for South Africans’ quality of life, with their global purchasing power declining amid lower GDP per capita. 

This also substantially impacts South Africa’s ability to negotiate with its trading partners, as the country is largely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

“We cannot talk to the Americans as equals. We cannot engage with the Chinese as equals. We are irrelevant in the eyes of the Americans,” Roodt said. 

“There is no way that we can draw favourable concessions on the global stage. We do not have momentum or mass behind us. We are a tiny, tiny economy.” 

Moral influence has been lost

South Africa’s economic decline has been compounded by its deteriorating political image globally, and the favour once enjoyed has been lost over the past decade. 

“The only thing that South Africa had going for it over the past thirty years or so was its political clout on the global stage,” Roodt said.

This “clout” derived from the influence Nelson Mandela and the ANC wielded on the global stage due to their efforts to bring Apartheid to an end and transition South Africa to a democracy in a peaceful manner. 

Mandela and the ANC were seen as moral pioneers, which provided an example of how a country can transition from oppression to democracy peacefully. 

“South Africa had this political muscle on the global stage, and we certainly had this moral muscle internationally. We could use that to our benefit,” Roodt said.

“But, we have squandered that as well, due to the incompetence and corruption of the ANC government, because we are now known globally for different reasons.”

“We are known as a country that is not growing at all, where people are getting poorer. We are known as a country where there is rampant crime and corruption and incompetence.” 

In more recent years, South Africa has also become known for its rolling blackouts, logistical delays, and, increasingly, water shortages. 

“So that is what we are known for, we do not have this moral high ground that we previously had, and we certainly do not have any economic high ground,” he said.

“For South Africa, things have changed quite dramatically, and it is now a completely different world for the country to operate in.” 

Roodt explained that the international clients and investors he speaks to now ask very different questions about South Africa. 

“It previously used to be the normal questions surrounding economic growth, the government’s budget, and which sectors of the economy are set to benefit and so on,” Roodt said. 

“Now it is very different. They are looking at South Africa in a different light. They ask me about crime, corruption, power outages, and the country’s stability.”