During what was described as a provincial visit, President Cyril Ramaphosa this week seemed to gather enough courage to mildly rebuke his comrades in Gauteng for running the place down, and warned them to clean up the mess so he would not be embarrassed in front of his esteemed G20 visitors. He spoke as though he’d landed from Mars and the scale of the destruction wrought by his friends had just dawned on him. All one can say is: “Welcome to South Africa, Mr President. Where have you been?”
But Ramaphosa cannot feign ignorance or surprise. The destruction of Johannesburg has not been an accident, and it’s not an overnight thing. It’s almost been deliberate. It’s as though the culprits have been reading from a manual on how to destroy a city. Parts of the city centre have been reduced to slums. Dead traffic lights, potholes, sewage running down the street — that’s par for the course. Venturing into the city centre — whether driving or walking — is to take your life in your hands. The place is a textbook definition of a jungle, where lawlessness is the norm.
Minibus taxis have taken over the streets, driving anyhow and parking anywhere. The pavements are desirable real estate for informal traders or spaza shops, leaving no space for pedestrians. Hijacked, crumbling buildings have become death-traps, with slum lords making a killing exploiting desperate people who flock to the city looking for jobs and a place to stay. Who would have thought, for instance, that 77 people could be burned to death in the biggest metropolis in the country? Johannesburg is unrecognisable from the city it was a few years ago. No wonder business has taken flight.
Ramaphosa was addressing himself to the provincial leadership. But Gauteng is nothing without Johannesburg. The city is the fulcrum, not only of the province but of the country’s economy. You fix Joburg and you’re almost on your way to getting to grips with the country’s economic woes.
Part of the problem was created right at the onset. Places like Johannesburg, Randburg, Roodepoort and others used to be run as separate entities, with their own mayors and councils — that is until the smart alecs of the revolution came up with this brilliant idea to combine them into huge unmanageable conurbations. Likewise, Durban took over Pinetown, Verulam, Tongaat and other smaller towns to become the cumbersome eThekwini municipality it is today. Port Elizabeth gobbled up towns like Despatch, Uitenhage and others to beget Nelson Mandela Bay.
The idea was never to facilitate service delivery. It was about power, to centralise power, taking it from residents and consolidating it in the hands of trusted, unelected, party apparatchiks. For instance, appointees of the ANC president or its NEC used to be shoo-ins for mayors of these metros, until the party lost its absolute majority. The icing on the cake, obviously, was that, thanks to the party’s deployment policy, comrades who could hardly run a tap were put in charge of these monstro-cities. The result has been absolute bedlam. They’re not only out of their depths, but, like our parliament, they’re also far removed from the people they purport to serve.
It’s no surprise therefore that all the fighting has not been about catering to the needs of residents, but about power and positions. That has been the story of all the metros. And the ANC have been in the forefront of all of this — running down the metros when they were in charge, and destabilising them once they lost power.
One would be hard-pressed to find an ANC honcho without a skeleton in the cupboard, as one feisty lady once suggested. The problem is not necessarily that the scourge exists; it is that it is tolerated, thus almost encouraged. There are no consequences
Ramaphosa has not only been watching this movie all the time, he had a hand in drafting the script. For many years he sat on the NEC, where these decisions were taken, even before he got into government. And since he became president he has done nothing about the instability in the metros, the jockeying for power, the looting and the mismanagement. He simply became an observer like the rest of us. He never read them the riot act, even as the miscreants openly defied him.
What is worrying is that Ramaphosa is moved to express his displeasure now, not out of concern for the lot of the residents who’ve been getting shoddy services all these years, but because he fears being embarrassed when his G20 visitors set foot in the country. To say the least, that is frankly disappointing. Where was he when the metros descended into chaos as the parties, totally oblivious of the needs of residents, jockeyed for power?
Ramaphosa now says that when he attends meetings in other countries “we find those places are in tip-top shape”. Exactly, because those countries keep their places spick and span as a matter of course, not to impress visitors. Had he used his powerful position to knock heads together, he would have had no cause to fear any embarrassment. He would be a happy host who would proudly show his guests around. Residents, too, would have been happy. Now he’s left to making public pleas, and it’s too late in the day, anyway. The G20 is already upon us.
His startled audience could be forgiven for viewing the presidential rebuke as a bit unfair. After all, corruption and mismanagement aren’t unique to Gauteng. They permeate the entire organisation, including the government that Ramaphosa leads. One would be hard-pressed to find an ANC honcho without a skeleton in the cupboard, as one feisty lady once suggested. The problem is not necessarily that the scourge exists; it is that it is tolerated, thus almost encouraged. There are no consequences. For instance, Ramaphosa’s host for the day, Panyaza Lesufi, is not only an incompetent windbag, but also has a cloud over his head. More than R400m allocated for the sanitisation of schools when he was education MEC simply vanished into the pockets of his cronies. He was never held to account for it. Instead, he was promoted to premier.
Ramaphosa should not plead ignorance or act like a voice crying in the wilderness. The buck ultimately stops with him. This country, too, could be in “tip-top shape” if only he were to rouse himself from slumber and do his job.
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