Lesufi talks the talk but can he walk the walk?

My heartbeat spikes. I could feel my eyelids flutter like a bird jetting off before sunrise. My mouth wide in a silent scream. I make a note to myself: the new Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi is good with words. He’s the sort who will sell us dreams.

Speaking on what needs to be done in Gauteng, Lesufi is less effusive and eschews political dogma for a refreshing pragmatism you’d hope to hear from our country’s highest office.

On various platforms this week, Lesufi says the cost of living is being made higher by government ineptitude — and it is this he needs to urgently address. Bravo.

We take our children to private schools, the former education MEC says, because we have, for good reason, lost hope in government schools. He will turn government schools into citadels of knowledge and 21st-century learning.

We build high walls around our homes, pay exorbitant fees to security firms, install alarms and cameras because we have lost hope that government will secure us in our homes and businesses.

Lesufi’s administration will take the war to the criminals; he will put an end to the troubling spectre of kidnappings along with persistent cash in transit heists, home break-ins and so on.

We are punished by medical schemes through high fees (and still run out of funds just before the end of the year) because we have no hope of coming out alive should we be hospitalised in dilapidated government-run health facilities. His administration is coming to our rescue. How sweet are thy words!

The working (and some of the middle) class spend disproportionate amounts on commuting to work because public transport is in a shambles. Private firms are moving their goods from rail to roads because of the shambles.

Lesufi’s rise to the top post could be a reminder that our transport networks are not just about commuting; they are the lifeblood of our economy.

Lesufi also says he has ensured that, in his executive, there’s no-one tainted by corruption. Those who remember allegations relating to the R400m school sanitation spend have clearly not read the Special Investigating Unit report on the matter. But he, as Gauteng’s new premier, will fight malfeasance in his administration, especially at the top. The key considerations for those appointed to his executive, he says, are individual capability and the desire to go the extra mile.

Lesufi is a former spokesperson, a communications guy at heart, adept at saying the right things. He knows what buttons to press to make the lips twitch, the hearts to skip beats and the eyes to twinkle.

He’s the type to sell hope to hope merchants. Everything he said is right. The problem has never been the diagnosis, or even the prognosis. In Tsonga, we say mintirho ya vulavula.

Lesufi has 18 months before the people of Gauteng give their verdict on his well-chosen words. It will be 30 years since the Gauteng faithful voted for Nelson Mandela and Tokyo Sexwale as their president and premier respectively. They were sold dreams: jobs, jobs, jobs in addition to a better life for all. Yet, we are here. We have explanations and new attempts at giving us hope.

Man cannot live on hope alone, Mr Lesufi. To say this is not to argue against hope — it is, in fact, to seek oxygen for hope.

That oxygen is actions that change lives for the better, turn shacks into decent houses, make us feel secure in our homes, educated in inexpensive schools and taken care of at local clinics that have the right medicines.

As Lesufi starts his first week as premier, I have hope, but am not optimistic. Lesufi was part of the executive when Life Esidimeni happened. He was there when Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital burned down and the province took years before deciding it couldn’t help itself: the national department of health must help it do what it was established to do.

Lesufi was there when his comrades feasted on personal protective equipment (PPE) funds, when whistleblower Babita Deokaran was slain after asking

He’s the type to sell hope to hope merchants ... but man cannot live on hope alone, Mr Lesufi

questions about the Thembisa hospital spend. It’s not enough that he was personally not responsible for the R400m PPE funds squandered by his department, or that he deferred to his health MEC to tackle the Charlotte Maxeke challenge. The provincial executive is not a federal system in which each one is absolved of the actions of others only when things go wrong but united to take credit when things go right.

Perhaps he’s waxing lyrical because he has rediscovered his voice and can put his foot down in a way he could not when David Makhura was in charge. It’s his actions, though, not his words, that will give people hope.

The pace with which Lesufi does things may mitigate the ANC’s losses in Gauteng, but it may not be enough for the party to get 50% plus one to retain the country’s economic jewel. The war against metaphysical despair Lesufi must wage requires more than the few months he has. Is this enough for him to bring hope to the unemployed of Soweto, Soshanguve and Thembisa by creating jobs for them? How many jobs can he realistically create in 18 months? What of the vagaries of crime and the tapestry of lies about anti-crime strategies that have been made to the middle class, the most cynical of those who must vote for him?

It’s an uphill battle — and there’s no time. His only hope is a DA leadership that self-sabotages itself at almost every turn. Even that may not be enough to save him from being the ANC’s last Gauteng premier.