Lessons for SA from the Covid-19 pandemic
As an economy:
- South Africa needs to make the things that we consume, and we need to buy our own stuff from ourselves.
- We need to be more self-reliant. Being self-reliant is not the same as being isolationist.
- We need to build real productive capacity to be able to respond to crises.
- We need to make work for our own people, in factories that produce what we need – in good and bad times.
- Political leaders need to be held accountable when the cash reserves of the State are robbed blind: We cannot start another future crisis with a bad hand of cards.
As a society:
- We need to be more law-abiding as a group of people. The rule of law has to be respected on a daily basis, so that we can appeal to the ‘common good’ when it is necessary.
- The law has to work for everyone.
- Government has to prove that it deserves respect – respect is like a currency with a trading value.
- We need a new citizenship project in which we are all active players. No more free-loaders, no more delinquent citizens. Active participation on the part of all.
As designers:
- We need to design with the highest common multiple, not with the lowest common factor.
- We need a different form of capitalism, where best value trumps lowest price. Our obsession with lowest price makes us unwell.
- Pro-poor development outcomes – not ‘policies’ – need to be our priority.
- We need to enable people to make a decent living and to live in decent environments.
- We have to realise that we are part of a community, and that we all rely on each other.
- We have an individual role to play as citizens, first of all, to design the society we want through our own actions. Design by doing.
What will this crisis deliver?
- It will show up system failures in service delivery for what they are: Life-threatening.
- It will make us reassess every part of our businesses as a company community.
- It will deliver strong and mobilised communities that will not take empty promises any longer.
- It can cause a deep change in the working relationship between Government and Business, based on trust and mutual interdependency.
- The decades-long disdain and mistrust between Business and Government could be swept away by working together to tackle this crisis.
- It can lay the basis for a new social compact around the Ruling Party’s central mantra: ‘A BETTER LIFE FOR ALL’.
Henning Rasmuss, Director, Paragon Group
Ends
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Notes to the Editor
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About Paragon
Paragon, established in October 1997, is an internationally-active design business, based in Johannesburg. We deliver commercial architecture, masterplanning, interior design, and space planning to visionary clients in all property sectors, from retail to residential and education.
We are committed to global urban development. We are able and agile. Paragon is flexible and diverse in its approach to design. Each project is unique and not driven by style, but by lifestyle and a response to user needs. Elegant and efficient planning form the core of our designs. We understand the needs of our clients, and know how to generate ever new architectural forms in a competitive property market.
We are known for hands-on engagement with all opportunities present in the modern global building industry. The true measure of our skill is our ability to engage at all levels and with all players that make up the colourful world of construction and property development. Our buildings look forward. We embrace the future, because we will be a part of it – part of its problems and responsibilities, and part of its great freedoms and achievements.
Paragon Group Contact
Cindy Faux
Director
Phone: (011) 482 3781
Email: cindyf [at] paragon [dot] co [dot] za
Web: www.paragon.co.za
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NGAGE Public Relations
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