ANC taxi has huge mechanical problems
AS A Muslim, Ebrahim Rasool should heed the Qur’an: “Let not the hatred of a people swerve you from justice…” (Surah 5: verse 8). And justice cannot exist without the truth.
His op-ed piece (“DA’s ugly side on full display for all to see” in the Cape Argus of June 7) is embellished with racial and derogatory rhetoric (the brown mass at the bottom refuses to be dominated by the white froth on top), smoke and mirrors and hyperbole (constitutional crises). Instead of a cappuccino which analogises race, a better analogy would be a taxi.
The driver of the ANC taxi fears losing customers (voters) and is nervously pointing to the dents and scratches (drought, identity crises, gentrification and Patricia de Lille) on the DA taxi.
He says the DA taxi is managed by a white mechanic rather than the black driver. But the ANC taxi has serious mechanical problems: crime out of control; destructive and extensive protests; most government departments, municipalities and SOEs bankrupt, needing billions in bailouts; the education and health departments are a mess; the economy contracted by -2.2% (Q1); junk bond status; rising prices; R3 trillion government debt; a zero-sum game where ANC policies benefit a few crony blacks at the expense of the black majority; etc.
What the populist ANC mechanic plans is more horrendous: Zimbabwe-styled land grabs, the destruction of the agricultural sector and its knock-on effects on the rest of the economy.
Similar property grabs reduced the GDPs of Zimbabwe (-70%), Uganda (-50%) and Venezuela (-35%) and led to mass starvation. The problems besetting the DA and the ANC are chalk and cheese. NAUSHAD OMAR Athlone