Real ‘State of the Nation’ found in filth, poverty outside Parliament

THE real State of the Nation, can be found just outside Parliament on the other side of the fence.

There you will find broken and unmaintained benches; filth and squalor; and destitute and vulnerable members of our society eking out an existence on the pavement day to day.

Currently they have been removed from sight – so as not to sully Sona and show the true state of the nation.

A few meters away are a political elite living a high life of pomp and ceremony, more interested in abusing power and state resources for gluttonous self-enrichment – at the expense of the nation. Is there really any difference between pastors (like Omotoso, Bushiri and the “Snake” and “Doom” pastors) who trade in religious quackery and those in power who govern our country?

Both are (in the words of Ramaphosa himself) “hope merchants”, delivering false hope and promises at people’s expense. The pastors are arrested for their quackery and deceit, but the political elite are not.

The State of the Nation Address presented by President Ramphosa cannot be seen in isolation of the ANC, or of the party’s destruction of all that was done to build a better South Africa for all during the Mandela and Mbeki eras, and of Ramaphosa’s personal complicity.

It is the ANC that presided over and facilitated the near collapse of the state. The ANC broke our country.

It is the ANC that dictates what the president may or may not proffer to remedy our parlous state.

And it is the ANC (its factions and corrupt groupings) that will frustrate, thwart and sabotage any attempts to claw back the state; the creation of conditions for growth; the halting of wide-scale looting of the state; and ensuring the prosecution of those complicit in grand corruption.

Can you imagine how many ANC members – elected into office, deployed into government, and tenderpreneurs – are complicit in the heist of our state? If Ramaphosa were to try to earnestly “clean up” to any meaningful extent, the ANC would simply shatter, or he would fall.

All the reformist measures proffered by Ramaphosa today are offered to reverse the damage wrought on our nation and its people by the ruling ANC over the past 10 years.

MOSIUOA LEKOTA | President of Cope