Ramaphosa’s happy dawn turns to dusk

The real problem is the ANC’s ruinous combination of ideological rigidity with moral spinelessness. This is a government that can’t think on its feet for fear of doing something that inadvertently contradicts the sacred tenets of Marxist-Leninist theory. To make matters worse, at the same time it will invariably cave to the basest populist sentiment of its supporters, no matter what the ultimate cost.

Gordhan is probably the most overrated minister in the government. Despite his dictatorial approach and poor ministerial record, Gordhan remains the darling of the media, largely because he resisted state capture. He and Ramaphosa both portray themselves as pragmatists when seeking overseas investment and aid. The reality, however, is that they continue to take decisions on strongly ideological grounds, despite their self-evidently catastrophic effects.

South Africa’s present plight is not the legacy of apartheid and colonialism, of the North-South divide. It’s not the lack of physical and human resources. It’s caused by the ANC’s deliberate impotence – an intellectual inflexibility coupled with gutlessness in execution.

For now, Gordhan has averted the crisis. Ramaphosa, basking in all the pomp and ceremony that a new king and new prime minister could lavish on him, did not have to hurry home this time. An emergency meeting was held on Sunday with the Eskom board. In a media statement dripping with condescension and dishonesty, the DPE did its best to portray Gordhan as chivalrously riding to the rescue of a power utility that somehow doesn’t understand how complicated things like budgets and maintenance schedules work.

Since then, Gordhan has fortuitously discovered that PetroSA, another of his stuffed-up SOEs, had been hiding 50 million litres of diesel under the sofa. This will be diverted to Eskom to keep the gas turbines going for another two weeks. By then, says Gordhan, a “permanent fix” will have been found for Eskom. Much like the “permanent fix” he promised for SAA, no doubt.

That involved lots of super glue, favoured comrades, and a murky organisational and funding structure that he has repeatedly refused to disclose to Parliament.

@TheJaundicedEye