ANC must accept it is cause of state of emergency
President Cyril Ramaphosa faces a furious population as he gears up to deliver his annual state of the nation address next week. After all, the nation is in a disgraceful state and there is no getting around the fact that it is his ANC government which, over almost three decades, has brought us here. He faces a nation tired of living in darkness, having no water in their taps, and of negotiating potholed roads.
It is a nation that has faced illness from untreated sewage flowing down streets and into rivers.
Industry has floundered as it is denied both electricity or the right to invest in innovative solutions to become energy self-sufficient.
We have grown deeply weary of an unaccountable government and public service where rife malfeasance and corruption carry no consequences and where those in power drive the criminal syndicates stealing our future.
It is a government that puts ANC party interests above those of the country and which imposes on us its ruinous and outdated policies that clash with our constitution and common sense.
We are a nation fatigued by cadre deployment which stifles creativity, professionalism and excellence in our public service and which has firmly ushered out the principles of Batho Pele.
The National Development Plan — the blueprint painstakingly drawn up to direct our democratic dispensation on a successful and prosperous trajectory — has been utterly derailed by state capture and corruption.
Adopted in 2012, it proposed to eliminate poverty by 2030 — just seven years down the road.
Efficient, well-run state-owned entities were envisaged as the engine needed to power our economy.
At a minimum, we needed an energy sector driven by social equity and environmental sustainability and a transport sector offering a decent rail and road network.
Instead, we face a desperate energy crisis which has nuked investor confidence and driven us into a desperate recession. We have a collapsed transport network which is beyond the resources available to our state to repair.
The derailing of our democracy has been worsened by failed local municipalities which cannot deliver sanitation, water or any other essential service. This government has squandered our goodwill. If a state of disaster is declared, Ramaphosa will do so in the cynical knowledge that it is his party and government that created the catastrophe in the first place. The Sona will, for the second time, be delivered in the Cape Town City Hall.
Just 500m away, the uninhabitable burnt husk of our once magnificent parliamentary precinct has become a sad symbol of our decimated democracy.
We face a desperate energy crisis which has nuked investor confidence and driven us into a desperate recession