All people care for services, not for slogans

GAUTENG Premier Nomvula Mokonyane last month said the province's hospitals were battling to cope.

The reason, she said in her State of the Province Address, was the massive influx of "so-called health migrants" from other provinces.

There were too many referrals of patients from other provinces and Gauteng's stagnant health budget was unable to cope with increasing demand. This contributed to Gauteng's healthcare crisis, she said.

The public response to Mokonyane's remarks was surprisingly mute. No fuss. No controversy.

It was almost as if she had said nothing strange. The politicians governing the provinces where the "so-called health migrants" come from didn't seem to care.

Fast forward to this month. Western Cape Premier and DA leader Helen Zille says her province is taking care of "education refugees" from Eastern Cape.

Her remarks have sparked a furore. The ANC is up in arms, with its Western Cape provincial chairman, Marius Fransman, even telling Zille that her underpants are hanging out. Some have gone to the extent of calling her a racist.

But what about Mokonyane's statements? Would it have helped if Zille described the people from Eastern Cape as "so-called education migrants"?

Why she decided to describe South Africans as "so-called migrants" was not entirely clear. Since when have we begun to issue citizenship based on regionalism?

We need to interrogate the conditions that give rise to such nonsensical rhetoric from senior politicians. Some basic facts are necessary.

For historic and geographical reasons Gauteng and Western Cape are the biggest economic and political centres of South Africa. Western Cape is the country's legislative capital. It boasts, among other things, relatively big tourism, shipping and manufacturing sectors.

Gauteng is the industrial hub of not just South Africa, but the whole of Africa. The other provinces, and perhaps to a lesser extent KwaZulu-Natal, which has a strong industrial and farming base, are subservient to Gauteng and Western Cape.

The result is that people from other provinces will always want to flock to these provinces in search of better opportunities and a better life.

Good governance - real or perceived - play a bigger part in determining not only the flow of people, but also investments by companies. For its own political interests, the DA is presenting itself as an alternative to an ANC government, which it tagged as inherently corrupt.

If the DA's message is coupled with some visible delivery of quality services in Western Cape, at a time when the ANC is unable to deliver the same in its stronghold in Eastern Cape, you don't need to be a professor of population geography to figure out the migration patterns that will result out of this.

Jobs, education and health are what concerns the majority in the country. These three are at the core of people's survival and human development. Whoever delivers better on these is likely to attract people from other provinces.

In fact, this is not just a local phenomenon. It is what drives global migration patterns. Countries that offer opportunities in these areas are the largest recipients of skills and investments. Lack of these only serve as a push factor, driving people out.

Even the blind can see the disaster that has befallen Eastern Cape on governance, jobs, education and health.

Eastern Cape's department of education is run by a constellation of forces who have made it their mission to suppress the dreams of African children. It amuses them.

Modidima Mannya, the arrogant head of the department, is entangled in what he loves most: silly political battles instead of fixing the rot in his department.

Strangely, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and not the department insisted on employing him.

Sadtu is so strong in the Eastern Cape's education sector that the lines between employer and employee have been erased.

The department of public works is so incompetent that it has failed to eradicate under-the-tree and mud schools. Money allocated for education services is either squandered or returned to the Treasury, while African children who depend on public schools suffer.

President Jacob Zuma's intervention has failed to gain traction. Despite his statements to the contrary, all is not well with the intervention. And for his own personal political survival, he is unable to crack the whip. Eastern Cape politicians cannot entirely blame Zille's regionalist mindset. The reason they resist proper intervention is that they have a false sense of regional sovereignty. It's almost like saying "leave us alone, it's our mess, not yours".

There is no difference between schooling conditions in Eastern Cape and those in the war-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Eastern Cape healthcare facilities barely function optimally. The cancer of corruption is so rife that you would think it took time to diagnose. Yet it has always been there, treated as a way of life.

All this mess in a province that blessed the country with many visionary political leaders who spearheaded the liberation struggle! Yet ordinary people know that however important this part of their history, what matters is to have access to basic services regardless.

If they will get services in Western Cape, they will inevitably go there, even if you call them "refugees".

If people think they can get job opportunities in Gauteng because there are fewer tribal considerations than, say, in Limpopo, they will take a taxi to Johannesburg and Tshwane.

We need to ask Mokonyane whether the "better life for all" (ANC slogan) is applicable to only "non-migrants" in Gauteng.

Similarly, we need to ask Zille whether the "equal opportunities for all" (DA slogan) is applicable only to "non-refugees".

The important word in both slogans is ... ALL.