Outcry forces R22m flag rethink

MTHETHWA’S PLAN: LABELLED RIDICULOUS, UNNECESSARY, TONE-DEAF TO THE CRISES IN SA

Minister makes U-turn under public pressure, calls for review of project.

The controversial R22.5 million proposed flag monument has, according to experts, proven the government is “out of touch with reality”, as Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa backtracked under the weight of public pressure and called for a review of the project.

In a country crippled by corruption, unemployment, poor infrastructure and load shedding, among others, the government’s plan to spend more than R22 million on a giant flag has been labelled ridiculous, unnecessary and tone-deaf to the crises in South Africa.

Strategic communications expert Sarah Britten said, following the public outrage on the R50 million donation to Cuba, it was “just bizarre” that the government had once more become tone-deaf to the real issues SA was facing.

“I would love to have been a fly on the wall when they approved this. The elephant in the room right now; what were they thinking? Did they really think it would go down well?” she asked.

“I think it speaks to how out of touch they are on the reality of the country. I mean, are they not paying attention to the national mood?”

Britten said the government’s efforts to look to meaningless cosmetic activities, which do not actually make people’s lives better in any way to address fundamental problems in the country, was yet another slap in the face of South Africans.

“This shows a consistent pattern of our government of trying to go for easy wins to do things which don’t require much effort and soul-searching.”

Political economy analyst Daniel Silke said while Mthethwa, together with President Cyril Ramaphosa, should be embarrassed, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana should be the most embarrassed, following his budget speech this year.

“This is an embarrassment for the minister of finance, who has gone out of his way to talk about cost-cutting and being prudent and understanding the limitations of state expenditure,” he said.

“And it really shows how poor decision-making and the wastage of taxpayers’ money can be so easily pushed through state departments if this had gone ahead.”

Silke said it has been reported Cabinet approved the flag project without any determination on the cost, which was a gross miscalculation by the minister.

“It really shows there is a failure of checks and balances within the broader executive, financial control level, or even at a political level to put a stop to this kind of unnecessary and excessive expenditure.”

SA Guild of Actors chair Jack Devnarain said government had failed to have some kind of intervention for SA artists, even though many lost their jobs due to Covid, yet presented a flag which was meant to unite the country.

“It seems quite clear to us: they do not understand the unique needs and challenges of working as a freelancer in the creative industry,” he said.

“It seemed this decision was taken without taking into account the need for that kind of funding, which could have benefited that particular department [Mthethwa] is representing.”

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage said the project has sent a clear message government was out of touch with its people.

It was and is not a citizen-centric government.

“When we’ve got so many issues, we’re broke as a country, to be wasting any money anywhere and spending it on projects which do not move the country forward meaningfully, is just a waste of money,” he said.

“Even in his department, the money could have gone a long way in helping, empowering and uplifting artists in the country.”

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The “fire pool mentality” is alive and thriving within the upper ranks of the ANC, if this week’s fiasco of the R22 million flag and its 100m-high flagpole is anything to go by. This mental aberration seems to afflict leaders of our ruling party when they have to explain yet more wasteful spending (or outright looting … there’s not much to choose between the two) to citizens who daily struggle to just put food on the table. It would seem a comrade (or comrades, in the case of the Cabinet) comes up with an excuse which seems, in his or her mind, to be perfectly logical.

Thus, it is not a swimming pool we have built at Nkandla with your tax money, it is a fire prevention system to keep our national hero, Jacob Zuma, safe in the event of an inferno threatening his thatched-roof residence (or indeed, even the cattle kraal).

The Cabinet somehow did not think that Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s plan for the flag to be a symbol of “national unity” would attract any criticism as our economy implodes and children starve. They, and the whole of Nathi Python’s Flying Circus, would have been taken aback by the tsunami of outrage which the plan generated.

Given that his boss, President Cyril Ramaphosa, is to “inspect” service delivery today in Mpumalanga – and take questions at an imbizo – it is clear why Mthethwa quickly changed tack to say there will now be a “review” of the project. Ramaphosa clearly doesn’t like to field tricky questions.

The whole debacle shows, yet again, that the ANC is increasingly divorced from reality and how our people are actually living.

The party would do well to remember that Marie Antoinette’s famous “let them eat cake” words came just before the French monarchy was violently overthrown.