Dr Ramphele’s remedy for South Africa

Another sullen debate about the president’s penis. Another cheerless ANC policy conference, external.

More shrill contradictions from the government about nationalisation, external. And the familiar, hoarse shouting match , externalabout who owns the least of South Africa’s economy.

The blare and frenzy of this country’s gloriously feisty political culture can sometimes get, well, a little gruelling.

But fear not. There is an antidote.

I met her last week in a modest office block overshadowed by a cloud-cloaked Table Mountain just outside Cape Town.

Mamphela Ramphele, external is among South Africa’s most prominent and well-respected public intellectuals – which is another way of saying that she talks with great passion and even greater common sense about the way forward, external for this restless country.

You can read her biography here, external and perhaps note, or even lament, the fact that academia and other pursuits have kept her away from high political office.

In her own calm, forensic way, Dr Ramphele is a ferocious critic of the ruling ANC – each blow delivered with a gracious smile and a surgeon’s acuity.

“The key issue of the ANC is not a lack of policies,” she said, dismissing the recent policy conference out of hand.

“The key problem is leadership and capacity to govern. Is it possible to have a liberation movement transforming itself into a democratic governing party?” she asked.

“There were glimpses of it during the Mandela administration… but the rest of the ANC, quite frankly, from the very beginning was more about taking control and… stepping into the shoes of the former colonizer.”

“What we have currently is a corrupt, unaccountable government,” which is trying to follow East Asian developmental state models, she declared.

She added: “Look at who runs those countries and see who is in government – engineers, accountants, lawyers, highly technically capable people” with performance targets to meet. Whereas in South Africa – and here she slowed to choose her words carefully – “you don’t have a critical mass of competent civil and public servants.”