Pravin Gordhan
Answers SAA’s emergency call
The precarious state of South African Airways is an apt metaphor for the country — it’s not only teetering on the brink, it’s almost as though the thing is on autopilot. There’s nobody in charge as it barrels down the abyss. It’s terrifying. Two years ago, when Cyril Ramaphosa defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the ANC leadership in a cliffhanger at Nasrec, the nation’s tepid mood immediately swung, and then soared.
Two months later, when Ramaphosa took over from a grumpy Jacob Zuma, the country was beside itself with joy. Absolute delirium.
We were convinced that a decade of carefree plunder and looting was behind us and the way was now clear to rediscover our route to the promised land. But a rip-roaring love affair that takes off like a rocket often ends in a crash.
Things have now come to a sticky pass. The national mood has plummeted. This week especially has been brutal.
Apart from SAA being placed in business rescue, Eskom continues its merry way, keeping us in the dark; the gruesome slaughter of women continues unabated; and the economy was last in such bad shape when it was a target of international sanctions in the ’80s. These things were not preordained. They’re man-made cockups. They are the consequences of choices that our shrewd politicians make.
The reclusive Fana Hlongwane, still living large on the fortune he made from the arms deal, made a rare public appearance at the Zondo commission. Self-absorbed and full of himself, it was hard to see the purpose of his appearance. It’s also irritating and difficult to understand why the commission treats these rogues with kid gloves. They deserve to be in jail, not mollycoddled.
But it is the utter chaos in the big metros that has left people incandescent. Council chambers have been turned into circuses. We are the laughing stock of the world. Our politics has long descended into a farce, but we seem to take it in our stride.
The mayhem in our municipalities is different. It’s closer to home. They can have their turmoil and confusion in parliament. They can hurl insults at each other and make asses of themselves. It often seems far removed from reality.
But local councils play a different, and direct, role in our lives. They collect our refuse, make sure potholes are filled, traffic lights work and our bills are in order.
A council impacts on how I run my home, my life. It has a direct effect on my peace of mind. We therefore expect councils to be run prudently.
The ANC’s return to power in Johannesburg this week has filled its residents with distress and trepidation. Their previous stint was marked by eye-popping corruption and incompetence. One has to confess there was nothing to choose between the parties. They’re all part of a bad bunch. But one would have expected the ANC to at least have put forward the least corrupt of its members as candidate for mayor.
Instead, the ANC put forward Geoff Makhubo, a man who apparently comes to the job dragging a caravan of scandals.
Such an appointment is a betrayal of everything that Ramaphosa has been telling us his administration, and indeed the ANC under his leadership, would be about. Makhubo’s election is confirmation, if any was still required, that talk of a reborn ANC under Ramaphosa is hot air, that the new dawn is a slogan dreamt up to impress a public hungry for a clean government.
But it also tells us that the fightback campaign is in full swing. The people who made hay under Zuma and who should be on the run for fear of being caught are instead unashamedly and confidently making a return to claim what they regard as theirs.
The dancing on the ANC benches must have felt like a stake in the heart to all who want to see a society free of corruption. The looters are back and they won’t let you forget that.
Ace Magashule, the man who left the Free State on its knees, came out of his lair to express himself mighty pleased with the outcome. For every step forward in the fight against corruption the country seems to take two steps back.
Throughout the turmoil there’s one crucial element that nobody seems even bothered about. The voter is the rock, the foundation, on which democracy is built. Yet no-one is talking about him or her. It’s almost as though the voter doesn’t exist or is immaterial to the entire setup. This whole circus therefore brings to the fore the need for electoral reform.
The biggest flaw in our system is the lack of political accountability. Elected officials are not directly accountable to the electors. In fact it’s not even correct to talk about elected officials in our system because we vote for the party, not the individual. This decides which of its members should be elevated to higher office.
The party is given a blank cheque that it uses as it sees fit. That needs to change. Anybody wielding power — from the lowliest councillor, to mayor, to president — should do so by virtue of direct election by the voters.
Maybe some of the madness we’ve been witnessing could have been avoided had the burghers of Nelson Mandela Bay, Pretoria and Johannesburg been able to elect their mayors.
Right now the councillors don’t care what the world, or the people outside, think because the voters are not their bosses. Their focus therefore is internal. The people, not self-serving councillors, should be deciding who should be mayor.