Recent calls from political and business leaders for social dialogue are in response to a real leadership vacuum in society as well as to the palpable weight of our mounting social and economic challenges.

Such calls have largely side stepped the elephant in the room — the fact that we already have an institutionalised version of a social dialogue in the form of the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac). That no one mentions Nedlac as a vehicle for driving social dialogue is a sign of how ineffective this body is.

Social dialogue can play an important role in making SA work. It can help generate ideas on how best the government can fix the economy, generate momentum for growth and craft a viable plan for reforming the labour market to generate more job opportunities. There are also soft infrastructure issues that can benefit from a social dialogue process, such as building solid foundations of trust and promoting harmonious race relations.

For it to work best, such a process should avoid too much institutionalisation — we already have a plethora of institutions, some of which are meaningless. There should also be no single organisation that is a catch-all for social dialogue to avoid the entrenchment of sectoral interests.

Nedlac is the kind of social dialogue that is counter productive. It was launched in 1995 to succeed the transitional social dialogue mechanism known as the National Economic Forum, which was established in 1992 to curtail the influence of the National Party over economic policy-making. It is made up of representatives of organised labour, organised business and those supposedly drawn from communities. It could well be characterised as organised hypocrisy.

Apart from the fact that it was formed to counter the apartheid-era practice of unilateral decision-making on economic and social policy, Nedlac also set itself the objective of promoting economic growth and social equity, as well as minimising tensions in industrial relations. Yet in the 17 years of its existence, industrial disputes have continued to surge, including in the public service. The economy is still struggling to grow and create jobs. Further, it has acted to throttle innovative ideas such as the youth wage subsidy. Sectoral interests in business have also unashamedly used Nedlac to lobby for tariff protection for sectors that cannot withstand global competition. The common thread that unites narrow business interests and unionists is their disregard for competitiveness and fear of change.

Meanwhile, SA struggles to improve its global competitiveness profile on labour market efficiencies. In the latest World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, SA ranks poorly on labour market efficiencies at 95th out of 142 countries. On adversarial industrial relations and lack of flexibility in wage determination, it is placed at 138. This is not a picture that inspires more investment and job creation.

The economic ministries are in awe of Nedlac, possibly more than they fear Parliament. The joke is that with this generation of MPs, it is easier to get policies endorsed by Parliament’s portfolio committees than to get them through Nedlac. It is not that the latter applies more rigour and efficiency, it is just that it has such a penchant for ideological sabre-rattling that it can take more than a year for a compromise to be reached.

To make any policy headway in Nedlac, ministers cajole the constituencies. It is a very dangerous institution that has a huge democratic deficit. Consider the "community representation" in Nedlac, alongside unions and business. Most of those who pretend to be representing "community" are former unionists, African National Congress politicians and South African Communist Party activists. They have no mandate to speak for the broader interests of SA’s diverse communities.

Getting rid of this charade will help us direct our energies towards renewing our democratic institutions, such as Parliament, and also construct a proper space for genuine and more inclusive social dialogue.

The poor in whose name Nedlac exists have no say in this body. They would not miss it if it were to be dismantled tomorrow. It adds very little value in promoting our democracy. Instead, it entrenches decision-making by a small clique in the name of social dialogue.

It is inappropriate to have a coterie of unionists and myopic business leaders determining our economic policy. A different kind of social dialogue should take place at multiple levels and be less formally structured. It should not undermine Parliament and bureaucrats who should be doing their work more efficiently. Its success will hinge on the commitment of political leadership and on efforts to ensure greater inclusivity. The current social dialogue arrangement, institutionalised through Nedlac, has proved to be a failure and a waste of resources.