On November 3, history was made when the Economic Modelling Academy (EMA) joined forces with the Gordon Institute of Business (GIBS). The offerings of EMA share mutual complementarity with the offerings of GIBS. EMA in the Sesotho language offers a dual meaning that in English would connote reflect. EMA means stand up, but also means wait.
EMA offers a unique foresight training based on system thinking and system design for economic policy. Through its powerful economic modelling, EMA captures the complex economic laws of motion and digests the interactions and reverberations among variables in time and space, and presents these in a way that enables rational policy conversations.
For Professor Morris Mthombeni, the Dean of GIBS, establishing the relationship and locating EMA at GIBS was a no-brainer because the programme provides invaluable operational tools that bring the public and private sector into a sensible conversation on economic policy foresight, policy design, implementation and evaluation.
Professor Somadoda Fikeni, the chairperson of the Public Service Commission, and no stranger to the modelling tools deployed at EMA, pointed in his keynote address to how these tools were used in the identification and quantification of policy options that defined the three outcomes in the Indlulamithi Scenarios.
Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, the deputy chairperson of the National Planning Commission, saw in EMA an addition to the arsenal of economic models that would be available to the commission, but more importantly that public service could be exposed to the training. This, he concluded, would be useful not only in the contestation that models and modellers always have, but in enabling the users to understand the underlying economic debates and the approaches and the rationale for specific choices.
Economic analyst Phelisa Nkomo, who approaches economics from a feminist perspective, welcomed the intervention of EMA because it provides an integrated lens on both economic and social impacts. This is especially so in modelling multidimensional poverty as a forward-looking planning tool.
For those who know me well, I have not been shy to share my opinion and views: the good, the bad, the bold. While it may feel like I am a scolding father, the truth is that I do this because of hope, not the lack of it. It is because in good part I reflect on my own failures, follies and fallibilities in public office and a clear bounce back amidst all the mishaps.
Let me say a few words on how I stopped taking alcohol altogether from January 13, 2002. This was not because I was an alcoholic, but because I realised I could be driven to be one because of the mounting challenges of office that confronted me. The choice was between being an alcoholic by succumbing to being run down by pressures of a gaping failure as the statistician-general. This would have occurred within two years of my appointment.
As the statistician-general I was faced with three monumental challenges: the first was I almost blew up a billion rands in wasteful expenditure in Census 2001; the second was the miscalculation of the Consumer Price Index; and the third was on accusations of corruption against myself. All these converged in a space of ten months; May 2002 to March 2003 was not an easy period.
So, when I sound like a school principal, it is because I have experienced trouble before, but also came out the other end guns blazing. The key difference was a clear plan of identifying what the issues were and what the plan of action to resolve these would be.
In the policy space, I see EMA giving me the confidence that even the malaise of economic policy design confusion plaguing the South African government stands to be resolved.
In Census 2001, I was confronted with a monumental problem of having spent R960 million of taxpayers’ money without a byte of data emerging from the scanned data. It took effort and focus to ultimately find a solution, using blue light to rescan a hundred million images and successfully extract data of the census that counted for the nation. Equally, on the CPI debacle, it took painful and bold steps to fix the numbers.
Finally, on the allegations of corruption, a real distraction to the two monumental tasks that were afoot, but I had to focus on the purpose of Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) and ignore the personal attacks. Only when I had completed the mission critical deliverables of the nation did I turn to the innuendo. To this end, I offered myself to the public service commission for investigation, and crucifixion should the investigation make a negative finding.
So, when I talk like a scolding father, I draw from the sad experiences and how, as an institution, Stats SA pulled itself together to be a successful institution - a fact finder of the nation we are all proud of today.
I would be remiss of conscious citizenship to hold back counsel form those who need it the most.
I have so much hope and faith in our country. Our people. Our potential. Our industry. Our business. Our talent. But all these are possible when we open ourselves to scrutiny and rationality.
We are still basking in the collective hope of the teamwork of last weekend as we watched the Springboks take the Rugby World Cup home against all the odds. Today, I feel the collective hope of the team we have formed with GIBS. I feel the collective hope of our leadership of thought and insights demonstrated through our esteemed panellists. But hope alone will not save us, or deliver us from non-performance. Action will.
GIBS and EMA collaboration no doubt is the action necessary to resolve our ailing capability of the state. Register for the programme and release yourself from the maelstrom of undeserved ignorance.
Dr Pali Lehohla is director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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