Lesufi’s grand plans will cost us

When it comes to spinning fantastic tales, President Cyril Ramaphosa has competition from Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, whose State of the Province Address painted a picture of bright, shiny, happy, equitable provincial bliss. Waving his magic wand, Lesufi is going to end e-tolls (okay, we know he’s promised that a number of times previously); train 40 000 unemployed youth to be artisans; provide those young people with land so they can build their own houses; partner with a workers’ investment company to buy 18 private hospitals to convert into government institutions; add 300MW of electricity to the grid over the next year; install 8 400 CCTV cameras to combat crime; and even build a pleasure dome on the Vaal to rival Sun City as a tourist attraction.

Not only that, he’s going to convince National Treasury to cough up the money to build a new railway line to East London so that Gauteng-based car assembly plants can more easily export their products.

And he wants to take over the running of the province’s cities because they can’t deliver services. God complex, anyone?

The fruits of some of his earlier labours were present at the Nasrec hall to hear his speech: his green-uniformed amaPanyaza crime wardens vigorously applauded him for rescuing them from poverty.

While characterising Gauteng as the “third-biggest economy in Africa” – after Egypt and Nigeria – Lesufi clearly believes there is a bottomless well of money with which to execute all these dreams.

That money won’t come from e-tolls and it won’t come from those at the bottom of the income pyramid, so it’s got to come from somewhere.

Long-suffering taxpayers will pick up the bill for Lesufi’s grand plans. The main beneficiary, even when they don’t work, will be the ANC. Call us shocked.