To comment or give feedback on any of the content in this e-mail, just hit reply or send an e-mail to navrae.co.za. info@emails.tlu.co.za is a non-reply email address.

There is an option at the foot of this Bulletin to “Unsubscribe”. If you decide to personally send this Bulletin to your friends from your email address, and some of them decide they do not want to receive the Bulletin, kindly ask them to advise you personally and NOT to click on the “Unsubscribe” link. If they do this, your name will also be taken off our mailing list. We value our mailing list and do not want to see names removed unnecessarily. Thank you.

Pre-election time is with us again and the ANC’s message never changes: staying in power is the name of the game!

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently summoned more than 5 000 ANC “deployed” local government personnel “to ensure they meet the party’s expectations going into next year’s crucial local government polls”. (M& G 12.9.25). The party is out to avoid defeat in these elections. This is its goal.

His party has crippled a once-functioning country and he could still change this trajectory by ridding South Africa of the incompetents, gravy trainers and party acolytes whom he has deployed over the years. This would be a pleasant change for all of us. Alas it is once again not to be! The same old nonsense is proffered – these (ANC) councillors “must avoid defeat in next year’s polls”, declares the president. (M&G 12.9.25)

In a full-page M&G article, the president mentions service delivery once – yet he defines it as the key.  Of course it is the key – but the failure of this non-functioning key, plus the embezzling, the nepotism, the tender swindling and “lack of capacity” (ANC speak for someone who is too obtuse or lazy to do the job) has been an ANC phenomenon for thirty years!  Another persistent truth has been the president’s modus operandi when local government polls loom – he is shocked at what he sees as he tours the country and berates his deployees without the slightest notion of replacing them!  He behaves like someone who has flown in from Outer Mongolia to inspect what has been wrought under someone else’s watch!  His chicanery repeats itself year after year, without even a modicum of shame from this coast-along president. Those who are ”serving” (sic) must ensure that they win, he declares. And if someone decides to jump ship to Jacob Zuma’s MK party, the president assures them that they won’t get any salaries from that party. Principles? Policies? Hardly!  It’s all about money and power!

There is not a word to his municipal acolytes about how to actually improve service delivery, rather than simply talking about it, or whether the lack of drinking water for days on end within the communities of “his people” can actually be alleviated, or that the fifty -year- old pipes that are exploding all over the country must in fact be replaced, instead of being patched. What does he not see around him? Has he created his own truth, thus suspending the normal critical thought processes which are intrinsic to all sane human beings?

THE OVAL OFFICE

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent meeting with President Trump at the White House’s Oval Office was less than the salubrious occasion the SA president may have expected. His embarrassment and discomfort were obvious as he tried to avoid watching SA’s rogue EFF leader jumping up and down on the American president’s TV screen shouting “Kill the boer, kill the farmer”. This interlude simply confirmed what President Trump had been telling Americans all along: South Africa’s commercial farmers were indeed subjected to assault and killings at a rate higher than any civilian group outside a war zone. This overt incitement to kill was so strong and savage that it prompted president Trump to ask Mr. Ramaphosa “Why didn’t you arrest him?”  Why indeed we may ask!  This incident graphically exposed the African National Congress’ slack advocacy of law enforcement in South Africa.

International attention has since focused on South Africa, for all the wrong reasons. Its third world status is now no longer in doubt. Developed has morphed into developing in one generation! It has taken a long time, but the wheel is turning. It was not the most salutary time for the SA president to ask Mr. Trump to invest in South Africa. The SA president was in the Oval Office to put his case for American money.  

President Trump said nothing – the head of state of the world’s top economy knows full well there is no water in many parts of our country, especially Johannesburg. He knows not much works here, and if it does, it’s dodgy. He knows that the growth rate is extremely low. He knows that our justice system doesn’t function (the murder conviction rate was 14.5% in 2022), and that there is very little safe public transport. He knows about the crime both rural and urban, and the savagery of the jungle justice that is dispatched just outside our cities and towns because the police are not there to  arrest the criminal perpetrators plaguing the poorer areas of the country.

Our ports are struggling to extricate themselves from years of incompetent stewardship when they were classified as the worst in the world. Our roads are dangerous: hijacking and the parlous condition of the tarmac on even national roads are symptoms of a non-caring government. Many roads have huge potholes and others have turned to dust,  while farmers pay from their own pockets to repair rural thoroughfares in order to get their produce to market.

But perhaps the water shambles tops the calamity list.

WATER AND INVESTMENT

Who in their right mind would invest in a country where its largest and most important city cannot provide water for its citizens and industry? Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero declared that his city’s water situation “gives him sleepless nights”.  Under his party the ANC, millions of ratepayers also have sleepless nights wondering when their taps will start up again. This City of Gold, the jewel of Africa, has slipped into predictable third world ranking, with little or no effort made to stop the rot. The state president himself watched this slide but preferred to maintain the employment status quo by keeping thousands of local government workers deployed by his party on the basis of party loyalty, not competence.

The results were predictable: more than half of Johannesburg’s 83 water reservoirs have leaks or cracks. Of the 44 flagged reservoirs, 22 have been found to have such severe cracks that they cannot be filled to capacity. High lying areas go for days without water as the reservoir level is too low for pumping. Violent protests have erupted.  In some areas people have suffered for more than a decade with recurring water problems. Of course the usual “turnaround” plan has surfaced – throw more money at the problem but  whatever you do, do not exchange the incompetents for qualified people.

The money allocated to “turning things around” is disbursed through tenders which are usually allocated to friends of the party who, in turn, subcontract to anyone who is willing to split the available funds while the work performed is shoddy or is not done at all.

The corruption continues apace. Tenders are issued to family and cronies on the never-ending tender bandwagon.  

It might surprise President Trump and other speculators that SA government tenders have found their way into the offerings of witch doctors’ advertising in the local classifieds. They promise tenders for a fee, together with their other offerings such as winning the lottery and court cases, plus solving marital troubles and other unmentionables. Such is the South Africa of the ANC. They should perhaps themselves consult these witchdoctors who may guarantee them a win in  the 2026 elections. For a fee of course!