Ministers Sisulu and Motshekga need reality check

IT HAS been disheartening to hear ministers who ought to be accountable to South Africans once again shifting responsibility to others.

The first instance involves comments made by Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu this week. While handing over houses to residents, Sisulu was asked by a reporter why it had taken long to provide residents of Ikemeleng on Johannesburg’s West Rand with temporary living structures after four years of living in tents.

She replied: “Why did it take you four years to discover? You are the media, your job is to bring to the attention of officials of society some of the hazards of the way people are living. Why are you chasing stories that will give you the necessary popularity? This is what you should be concerned about. How are our people living? This is something that you should have brought to our attention a long time ago.”

It is not the media’s mandate to provide South Africans with basic services. The government has a Constitutional obligation to ensure that everyone has access to decent housing. Sisulu’s comments smack of arrogance.

Another sad case involves Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga. As teachers prepare for schools to reopen on Monday, she has lacked empathy for the parents who have raised red flags regarding their children’s health and safety.

In her update to the National Assembly, she said “parents were under no obligation to send their children to school if they were anxious about their safety” and “the anxieties of affected parents should not determine (the course) for children whose parents want them to go to school”.

There is no way parents have the time to entertain politics or are unwilling to send their children to school. Their primary concern is the well-being of their children.

For a minister, whose department over the past several years has had a poor track record of delivering textbooks on time and has failed to ensure there is adequate and suitable toilet infrastructure in rural schools resulting in the deaths of two learners, such comments are deplorable.

It is time the two ministers get a reality check and understand their appointments to the respective portfolios are not to solely fulfil their agenda or enrich their lives, but instead to serve the people of South Africa.