Sweep your own doorstep, Pravin

t is a sad day when Pravin Gordhan succumbs to the shout-first-think-later way of public commenting so beloved of his ANC comrades.

He did so yesterday – at the briefing about the ongoing implosion which is Eskom – when he had a gratuitous go at US President Donald Trump. In response to a question from an American journalist, Gordhan quipped that the US had “its own crises”.

Really? Last time we looked, minister, the lights weren’t going off all across the 50 states. And, we recall, the US unemployment rate so far in 2019 is just 4% ... or around one-seventh of that in South Africa. Nor was their currency in freefall, minister.

Levity does not become the person in charge of stateowned enterprises – and humour is the last thing we need as our own national crisis deepens. Yet, the ANC leadership – and Gordhan is, sadly, in danger of joining them – continue as if blithely unaware of how bad the situation really is.

The travelling sports fan Fikile Mbalula, from his perch high on the ANC’s parliamentary list, opined this week that our current power crisis will be over in a matter of weeks. Normally, we take with a pinch of salt anything Mbalula says, but we would not bet against a temporary improvement in electricity supply just ahead of the May 8 elections.

The ANC can then claim to have saved the country from a crisis it caused.

But it might all get even worse … as is evident from the fact that Eskom planners (are there any, by the way?) are said to be contemplating introducing stage five and stage six load shedding. That will mean longer periods without power and less time between those outages.

We know it won’t be easy, Minister Gordhan. But maybe you should do more and talk less.