Hogarth considers President Cyril Ramaphosa among the best of our politicians when it comes to delivering prepared speeches. But McBuffalo can also be his own worst enemy.
With millions of South Africans wanting to hear about his much vaunted national dialogue, he delivered a speech that left many wondering if the man was aware that he has been the country’s president for the past seven years and was deputy president before.
“Why do clinics run out of medicine? Why do taps run dry? These are some of the questions that we must be willing to ask and which we must be prepared to answer,” Cupcake told the audience at the national convention on Friday.
All good and fair questions if asked by a frustrated ordinary citizen. But asked by a head of state who has been in charge of the country for years they open him up to the title of President Angazi (I don’t know).
Water mafias need to get an invite
If McBuffalo were in tune with what is going on in the government he runs, he would be aware that his cabinet minister responsible for water already knows why taps are running dry. Just days earlier, Pemmy Majodina was on national television saying “water mafias are killing this country”. They were destroying infrastructure so they could win tenders for distributing the life-giving liquid in dying municipalities. Maybe this will come as yet another “shock” to the president.
What do rain queens drink?
Speaking of Majodina, it seems the minister is so overwhelmed by the task at hand that she is now pinning her hopes on miracles to solve the crisis in water-scarce Southern Africa.
At a water summit attended by a number of heads of state from neighbouring countries this week, Majodina started playing magician, telling her audience that since governments were “in control of serious things like rivers, waters, dams” they could make things happen. She then rubbed her hands together repeatedly while chanting that “clouds are gathering, clouds are gathering, clouds are gathering” — as though she was doing a rain dance.
It was her deputy, David Mahlobo, who had to remind her that she wasn’t there to play Rain Queen but to introduce an item on the agenda of the meeting. Looking perplexed, she declared “with powers vested in me by myself”, before asking the heads of state to join her in her ritual and declaring “it’s raining...”
Hogarth wonders what type of water the minister had that morning.
Paper rage and inky fumes
Back to the national dialogue. Hogarth still can’t figure out what the organisers were thinking when they sent a letter of invitation to the national convention to former president Thabo Mbeki, even though his foundation and several others had said they were not interested. The pipe-smoking one must have been most offended by the invite, apparently accompanied by an unsigned letter, because his office responded with a three-page missive dripping with sarcasm and a threat to convene his own dialogue.
Having read the former president’s response, Hogarth believes he could have saved a lot of ink and paper by simply writing “Andizi! — I am not coming!”
Careful what you ask for
Mbeki’s refusal to attend the national convention caused one of McBuffalo’s biggest defenders in government, Gwede Mantashe, to have a go at the former president. “I think one of the important things when you are in leadership is to let go when there is a new leader. If you don’t do that there is always going to be a confusion.”
Not very subtle, but a bit rich coming from the national chair of the ANC. It was the party itself, seeing it was losing electoral support, that dragged Mbeki from the comfort of his study back into the public domain in the hope he could win them some votes.
Cabinet must go back into the closet
The jury is still out on whether the national dialogue could yield results. Like most South Africans, Hogarth is sceptical. However, there is a sector of society that really needs to start talking with itself. And that is the government.
With the president’s office expressing shock at what the chief of the army is said to have pledged to the Iranian government during a recent visit, and the defence department basically echoing what the Union Buildings said, it was puzzling to hear defence minister Angie Motshekga saying the army general did nothing wrong.
A national dialogue? Maybe we just need a cabinet dialogue, where they can ask each other all those “questions that we must be willing to ask and which we must be prepared to answer”.
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