Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wasteGear shift2000 marked the nadir of state regulation. Following a spate of environmentalscandals and growing local resistance to corporate polluters, government announceda ‘multi-point plan’ for environmental management focused on south Durban, whereenvironmental activism was most intense, but with national implications. The planincluded the promise for new air quality legislation and tighter regulation to bepiloted in Durban. The environment did not move up in government’s priorities,however. Indeed, as hosts to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development(WSSD), the DEAT itself led a government strategy to subordinate environment todevelopment. This priority was justified as ‘alleviating poverty’ but was really aboutsupporting capital accumulation as the condition of economic growth – even as themostly poor neighbours to polluting industries were made to carry the costs.Being acutely sensitive to bad publicity, government was increasingly resentful ofresistance. It represented environmental conflicts as public relations battles with activistsdriven by Northern agendas. At the same time, it resorted to outright suppression ofdissent, particularly by poor people, resurrected security legislation such as the KeyPoints Act, and whittled away at the right of access to information – not least in thetext of the Promotion of Access to Information Act itself.Nevertheless, the failure of development to alleviate poverty was manifest and thechallenge from social justice and labour organisations was growing more acute. Gear,the primary instrument of development, was also failing in areas that were of concernto government as the manager of a capitalist economy. On its own terms, Gear wassuccessful in imposing spending constraints and reducing inflation and the nationaldebt but it predictably missed its stated goals on economic growth and job creation.In government’s view, the key problem was that Gear failed to attract private sectorinvestment – and particularly foreign direct investment.By 2004, government was advertising itself as a developmental state and preparing amore aggressive strategy of intervention, summarised as the Accelerated and SharedGrowth Initiative (Asgisa), to drive towards the magical 6% growth target. 49 Whilefollowing broadly from Gear, it differs in that Gear assumed that state investmentwould ‘crowd out’ private investments while Asgisa assumes that it will crowd in privateinvestment. Government investment focused on infrastructure development to be49 The groundWork Report 2006 gives a more detailed critique of Asgisa.- 68 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation