As long as ANC communications suck, GNU partners will continue to mop the floor

I travelled to Pretoria on Friday, 13 September 2024 to hear the latest from the GNU majority party on what it’s doing about party and government communications.

The occasion was the inaugural annual Ronnie Mamoepa Memorial Lecture, organised by the late government communicator’s family foundation under the theme: “30 Years of Democracy Reflection and Citizen-centred Government Communication”.

Given all the recent noise from the ANC about how the former governing party had failed to communicate effectively in its 2024 election campaign, I figured the theme would ensure we’d get some topical introspection and guidance on how the problem would be addressed.

No such luck.

Deputy President Paul Mashatile dedicated a scant four paragraphs of his 30-minute memorial lecture to ANC/government communications. The rest was context on how and why the ANC lost the election, a smattering of anecdotes on life with Ronnie, and a theoretical explanation – grounded, the deputy president explained, in the theories of Marx, Lenin and Engels – for why the ANC took part in forming the Government of National Unity.

Superficial comments

The deputy president’s comments on the state of ANC and government communications were not only brief, but superficial. Reading from his prepared speech, he said: “Let me say as I end that Ronnie would have been pleased with the developments we have made in one of the fields he was passionate about — government communication.”

He then ad-libbed, speaking directly to public servants in the room: “We need to jack up communication.” He repeated: “We need to jack up communication… In honour of Ronnie, the ‘dean of communication’, we must fix this.”

“Since last year, we haven’t even had someone at GCIS (Government Communication and Information System),” he said, referring to the long list of acting directors-general who have tried to steer the cumbersome and cash-strapped state communications machine. “We need to fill it soon so we can jack up our communication.”

Then back to the speech: “Our progress in technology and public engagement has been substantial. We have established platforms such as the District Development Model Outreach, which facilitates enhanced public participation and promotes innovation that increases information accessibility.

“E-government platforms have also reduced bureaucratic obstacles in public service delivery. However, there is still a need to engage underprivileged communities and establish a robust feedback process. The government will continue to use resources like social media, community radio and mobile technology to enhance outreach.

“As the 7th administration, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the goal is to create a society where every voice is acknowledged, and every citizen is empowered.”

Plans…

What all this indicates to me is that there actually isn’t a plan – or even a real recognition of how serious the communications problem inside and outside government is.

There’s been no sign of any improvement in how the ANC – or the ANC component of the Government of National Unity – communicates with the people of South Africa since the ANC national working committee at the end of July, where the leadership lamented that non-ANC Cabinet ministers have been “mopping the floor with the ANC, making its ministers appear incompetent”.

At the same meeting, the ANC discussed observations that the GCIS had failed to employ competent communicators.

This was amplified by Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni saying at an early August Cabinet briefing that “GNU ministers and their deputies will soon undergo training on the dos and don’ts of communication, particularly on social media”.

The minister added “we are currently working with the departments to finalise their own communication plans, which will also be aggregated to a cluster plan”, and that work was being done to formulate a government communication plan.

Ah yes, plans – the hallmark of the Ramaphosa administration.

In a modern democracy where communication is key to taking society with you, and on the back of a humiliating election defeat, the ANC and government communications need to move faster – or even just move.

GNU partners

While the ANC is busy analysing its election defeat through the lens of dialectical materialism, the PA’s Gayton Mackenzie is eating its lunch with his interventions on social media about every sporting code on the planet.

John Steenhuisen is holding the Cape Town Press Club captive for an hour-and-a-half on the DA’s position (and achievements) in the GNU. Other DA ministers, MECs and mayors are keeping the public in the loop, on a daily basis, about how they are working to improve governance.

They are tweeting and TikToking like their political lives depend on it, making the news rather than waiting to become news.

The deputy president is well aware of the role that propaganda played in bringing about a political victory for the ANC in 1990. He’s aware of the role communication and mobilisation played in the ANC’s election victories between 1994 and 2000.

As former Treasurer-General of the ANC, he’s aware of how the ANC’s communications capacity has become denuded and depleted over the past decade or so.

As a member of Cabinet, he’s aware why GCIS hasn’t had a full-time head since who knows when. Not to mention that there have been more than a handful of political heads of GCIS in the past eight years.

The ANC itself knows what needs to be done. At its 2007 policy conference (yes, that’s 17 years ago, not a typo) the ANC made several proposals on how to start winning what it calls “the battle of ideas”.

They include “vigorously propagating the ANC’s outlook and values versus the current mainstream media’s ideological outlook; establishing its own platforms for the production and distribution of information; strengthening government communication platforms; improving its own internal and external communication tools and platforms; improving the capacity of its communications cadres; and strengthening its interaction with journalists in all media”.

Nostalgia and simplicity

Sadly, there’s too much nostalgia and simplicity in how the ANC thinks and acts when it comes to communications, whether inside or outside government. It seems to have downgraded communications to a service function, like transport and procurement.

It’s compounded by GCIS’s structural and mandate problems, operating on the basis of an outdated framework (the Comtask report) drawn up in 1996, before most of the current crop of government communicators were even born.

And yet those young communicators, more than anyone, know we need new communications for new times, to new audiences, using new platforms.

They have ideas. They should be taken away for a weekend and asked to come up with a new approach, a new mandate for 21st century government communicators. Comtask II!

Yes, the ANC in and outside government needs to “jack up communication”. But it starts with taking it seriously and giving it the strategic attention it needs – making the right appointments, putting resources into communication and engagement (particularly on social media) and training ANC government leaders and spokespeople how to persuade and convince the population rather than being pompous, dismissive, rude, late or just plain absent.

Or it will continue losing.

Footnote: My apologies to the organisers of the Mamoepa Foundation event for arriving five minutes late. I was in gridlocked traffic in the Tshwane CBD; all intersections had been blocked until the deputy president’s seven-SUV motorcade swept past on the way to the venue, bringing the capital to a standstill and infuriating motorists.

That somehow said more to me about how government “communicates” than any official comment I’ve heard lately. And confirms the old PR adage that it’s not what you say that matters – it’s what you do. Which is, when you think about it, the ANC’s paramount challenge. DM