The African National Congress’s 2014 election manifesto outlines a subtle, yet material, shift in thinking with regard to the future structure and composition of the National Planning Commission (NPC).

Under the heading ‘Building a Democratic Developmental State’, the manifesto has the following to say on the issue of long-term planning: “We will establish the institutional mechanisms and build the necessary capacity within the State to undertake long-term planning, drawing where necessary on the expertise that exists in wider society. This will go a long way [towards] coordinating and integrating strategies for growth and development.”

Currently, competence for such long-term planning resides with a single institutional mechanism, the NPC. And besides its chairperson, Minister Trevor Manuel, the commission includes no other Ministers or government officials. Its 26 members have been drawn from various fields across civil society, albeit with something of a bias towards representatives from academia and business.

The NPC’s mode of operation and its outputs have, therefore, been somewhat liberated from the normal strictures associated with government processes and documents. However, it is plain from reading the National Development Plan 2030 (NDP) that the commissioners have, on the whole, attempted to engage in the ‘art of the possible’ by taking their lead from the policies and programmes of the administration rather than trying to reinvent them.

But this freedom has come at a cost, not only inside government, but also outside. The toll has been felt most acutely within the governing alliance of the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party. Notwithstanding the fact that the resolution outlining the creation of a national planning function was hailed as a key victory for alliance relations at Polokwane in 2007, it soon became a bone of contention. Initially, the arguments were about the personalities selected to lead the NPC, but the discussion eventually evolved into an even more divisive ideological contest. Opposition parties, too, have used the contradictions that have arisen between existing policy and ‘the plan’ as a stick with which to beat the ANC and government Ministers.

Arguably, only the nous and competence of Manuel and the astuteness of his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, who has since ascended to the position of deputy president of the ANC, have kept the plan alive: first through its adoption by Cabinet, and later through what can only be described as a process of procedural attrition within the ANC itself. The result is the manifesto’s description of the NDP as the “foundation” for a radical socio- economic agenda over the next 20 years.

However, the manifesto is also suggestive of an entirely new approach to planning. It talks of mechanisms rather than a single mechanism. It also emphasises internal State capacity, drawing on outside expertise only “where necessary”.

As to the future of a brains trust drawn mainly from outside government, a verse from musician Sixto Rodriguez’ song, Forget It, comes to mind: “But thanks for your time. Then you can thank me for mine. And after that’s said, forget it!”