The fact that it takes an exceedingly long time in South Africa for policy decisions to be made, let alone implemented, is something of a doubled-edged sword.

On the positive side, it can sometimes be less disruptive and divisive.

To be sure, if developments out of the White House since late January have proved anything, it’s that rash overnight changes can be hugely damaging economically, reputationally and eventually, one assumes, politically.

There are few if any quick wins in policymaking and radical changes always involve trade-offs, no matter how invisible they may seem when first unveiled.

The negative side of South Africa’s laborious approach can be truly damaging, however.

It means that bad policies and their effects become deep-rooted, and ecosystems develop around them that become almost impossible to weed out, as a range of perverse incentives flourish.

Secondly, our long-winded and process-heavy policymaking model inevitably means that facts and circumstances have actually changed, sometimes quite materially, by the time a policy is eventually approved for implementation.

Here, South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan for electricity is a good case study.

Each new edition is always outdated from day one, owing to the fact that technology costs and demand patterns have changed by the time Cabinet eventually sits to offer its approval.

While many are aware of this reality, it has nevertheless become almost impossible to update the document yearly, as is meant to be the case, the reason being that political interests have been allowed to take precedence over technoeconomic modelling and analysis.

Then, there are instances where sluggish decision-making – because of political expediency, a lack of foresight or insufficient information – risks precipitating a truly damaging disruption, whether social or economic.

While this is surely the case in the high-profile matter of crime, be it in the belated attention that has been given to illegal mining or cable theft, there are arguably hundreds of other lower-profile matters that have simply not been treated with the urgency they deserve.

It is in this category that the impending gas supply cliff falls.

Although the depletion of gas supply from Mozambique by 2028 will directly affect more than 600 large industrial enterprises, which collectively employ 75 000 people and contribute R600-billion to GDP yearly, while producing crucial steel, aluminium, glass, beverage and food products, there is still no clear policy pathway out of the crisis.

Yes, Sasol has extended the supply plateau from 2026 to 2028 and is proposing to divert methane-rich gas produced from coal from its own operations producing fuel and chemicals to supply industrial consumers.

However, these are merely interim fixes, and industry has been on record for years calling for plans to be put in place for the importation of liquefied natural gas to shore up supply more sustainably.

Still, very little has been done practically by government to put in place the policy frameworks to facilitate such imports, despite the potentially devastating deindustrialisation stakes.