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In a nutshell, our analysis does two things:

• First, it maps and describes how the ANC's approach to governance, in the 16 years since it has come to power, has seen the quality of public services provided by the state systematically decline. Three things are primarily to blame for this: centralisation; cadre deployment and a lack of accountability.
• Second, and as a consequence of the above, it describes how South Africa has seen the rise of private sector entrepreneurship and innovation, in an attempt to ‘fill the gap' between those services promised by the state - but not delivered - and those South African citizens demand.

By way of illustrating this important trend, the Democratic Alliance (DA) looks in detail at developments in three sectors:

• Education
• Health; and
• Security

In each case the DA seeks to demonstrate how the state has failed to deliver basic services, how the private sector has responded to the state's shortcomings in some wonderfully effective ways and how the DA would seek to harness best practice and foster competition to maximise the benefit for all citizens.

Examples abound: a highly sophisticated private security industry, a private school sector that delivers some outstanding services and a private health care industry which ranks among the best in the world.

The manner in which a political party responds to such developments can be in one of only two ways and that, in turn, says much about that party's ideology: Either it resists the way in which the private sector responds and meets innovation with hostility and an increased drive to control and centralise power; or it embraces the innovation, freedom of choice and enterprise epitomised by the private sector and seeks to foster an environment in which entrepreneurship is harnessed and allowed to flourish for the greater good of a society.

The ANC's philosophy defines the former and the DA's the latter. In other words, that the DA's vision of an Open Opportunity Society for All is one where the private sector is recognised as the best innovator and the free market the best environment for best practice to be established and practiced. In turn, that the state's role is merely to act as a facilitator, and its primary duty is to give competition the space to live and breathe.

Key in this regard are Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): programmes that allow the state to create such an environment, and to use it for the benefit of all citizens. The document describes numerous examples of how the DA advocates such relationships and the undeniable benefits thereof - a cornerstone of our approach to governance and establishment of an Open Opportunity Society for All.

The emergence of PPPs, which have the distinct advantage of leveraging private sector resources and skills to deliver social goods and services more effectively and efficiently, is significant because it allows South Africans the option to choose which service providers best suit their needs.

And choice is a critical element in the DA's vision of an Open Opportunity Society for All.

Only by seeking to maximise choice, by promoting innovation and by fostering an environment in which competition thrives, will a society achieve meaningful and sustainable economic growth. And so this analysis also helps define a more fundamental set of options facing South Africans: a constricted, narrow choice - epitomised by the ANC - where competition is suppressed and control enhanced; or a broad, expansive choice - epitomised by the DA - where freedom is maximised and entrepreneurship thrives.

Innovation and enterprise are not to be feared, but embraced. The trick is how best to harness them for everyone's benefit. By better understanding the problem, by identifying best practice and capitalising on its potential, a society can only ever grow and prosper. This is the DA's goal and we hope this document goes some way towards better explaining it and its benefits.