MICHAEL MORRIS | Behind every leaky pipe is a political decision - Business Day

Michael Morris

Cynics, I am often tempted to believe, deserve the dysfunction it pleases them to think is the inevitable product of democracy.

But cynicism’s penalties touch us all. Populists fashionably gloating over the supposed failures of Western liberal democracy are really capitulating to an inertia that only worsens every difficulty. Cynics fail to see that the freedom to make mistakes is the very freedom needed to correct them.

In a speech last week on the inescapable force of politics, the DA’s Helen Zille ― whose run for the mayoralty of Johannesburg is shaking up everyone’s sense of what politics can mean ― observed presciently: “The great virtue of democracy is that it gives society a peaceful way to correct its mistakes. For fallible human beings to try again.”

Democracy’s value was not that “voters are always right”, which they weren’t, or that democratic governments “are always wise, honest or competent”, she said. Again, they were not. Democracy’s offer was something else.

“It allows us to dismiss rulers without violence. It permits opposition. It protects criticism. It makes it possible for the governed to become the government and for the government to become the opposition. Democracy is often slow because it deliberately places obstacles in the path of unchecked power.”

Populists would conceivably baulk at this, as they tend to like unchecked power in the hands of their preferred figure of strength. But the hard truth for cynics is that, as Zille put it, “when we don’t vote, we are still voting, except that we are voting for someone other than ourselves to make the decisions as to who will have power and responsibility over our lives”.

Nobody could really “opt out of politics”, she said, “because we cannot opt out of its consequences”. There was no scope for just looking on from the sidelines. Democracy was “not a spectator sport”.

On the same day as Zille’s speech my colleague, Institute of Race Relations (IRR) economic policy analyst Anlu Keeve, was launching her paper, Reinforcing South Africa’s growth through infrastructure. This report is the latest of the institute’s Blueprint for Growth series, an initiative intended to show that South Africa’s socioeconomic trajectory is not fated but chosen.

No South African needs alerting to the country’s infrastructure crisis, but Keeve’s baleful summary is a reminder of the scale of it: “Nearly 30% of water supply systems are in critical condition, with rural areas worst affected and urban centres like Johannesburg facing frequent cuts.

“Eskom’s energy availability factor has collapsed from 91% in 1999 to the mid-60s today, while electricity tariffs have risen six times faster than inflation since 2007. The ports of Durban, Cape Town and Gqeberha rank among the worst-performing in the world, and the shift of freight from rail to road has damaged roads, raised costs and fuelled a 61% rise in truck hijackings.”

The real crisis ― as Keeve makes clear ― is not infrastructure per se but economic growth, “as the infrastructure is collapsing, its breakdown is depressing economic growth and discouraging investment”. However, the emphasis of her report is less on the decline than on the scope for renovation.

Warning against thinking that fixing infrastructure can “be treated as merely a technical task that requires more money and expertise”, Keeve writes: “It will require changing the rules that govern how decisions are made, who makes them, and on what grounds. It also requires restoring the state’s ability to enforce the rule of law.”

Behind every leaky pipe and stalled project is a political decision. Which, you might say, leaves no room for cynicism.

Morris is head of media at the South African Institute of Race Relations.

https://www.businessday.co.za/opinion/2026-08-03-michael-morris-sas-infrastructure-woes-tied-to-political-choices/