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Cyril Remaphosa’s recent State of the Nation Address (SONA) was a masterpiece of obfuscation, omission and hyperbole. This is what we are used to - it is his style to address the nation as if he were a visitor, someone who just flew in from Outer Mongolia. Before the G20 meeting last December, he told us he was “shocked” at the state of Johannesburg. He hurriedly initiated a cleaning bee to welcome his G20 overseas guests.  In his SONA speech, he outlined the state of the country as if it were an abstract narrative he was relaying to South Africans, as if they didn’t know. Nowhere in his 33-page speech did he admit the obvious – the shambles that is present-day South Africa is a direct result of his party’s policies and governance.

This is really bizarre political behaviour. No responsible democratic government anywhere in the world would try their luck with such a speech compilation, on an electorate worth their salt.  The country is infirm because of the president’s policy of cadre deployment – this has been Ramaphosa’s entrenched strategy for years. The ANC government’s Employment Equity legislation is the root cause of Johannesburg’s water drought, country wide refuse non-collection, street lights that don’t work, sewage farms with broken pumps, poor health care, perennial lack of funding for everything (except salary increases for state employees), There are not enough schools, there is unabated crime, a discredited police force riddled with corruption, (there are some notable exceptions),  infrastructure failures – potholes, exploding sub-stations, corroded underground pipes, unsafe roads, creaking ports, disappeared railway stations, no border control, any number of crime syndicates, and country-wide killings and gang warfare that do not attract arrests, never mind trials and convictions.

South Africa collects more than R1,7 trillion a year in taxes. What citizens get for their money is a disgrace. No government in any self-respecting country would have the gall to assume they will be in power forever, given the type of treatment meted out to these citizens. Bu the arrogance of the ANC is only exceeded by their ignorance, a toxic duo.

THE FARMERS

Then there are the farmers . Beef farmers carry 14 million cattle. These farmers are now ravaged by a pandemic of foot and mouth disease that has been allowed to run rampant, despite numerous and timely warnings. These farmers are on their knees because of government’s obsession with the control of vaccine distribution and, like everything else they have touched, the regime has crippled what was once the finest animal disease treatment laboratory in Africa, perhaps in the world. The current government’s political deployees cannot supply enough vaccines timeously - they are incompetent and the president has watched the deterioration of animal disease competence over the years and did nothing. In his SONA speech (p. 19), President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that “the state will facilitate the acquisition of vaccines centrally to ensure that we get the right vaccine for the particular strain of virus in South Africa.” He further indicated that the national herd of 15 million cattle will be vaccinated, which will require 28 million vaccines over the next 12 months. But the vaccine problem began when the government interfered with a working system and took control. They have never relinquished control and the results are there for all to see. Despite the fact that that they have allowed 50% of the country’s beef to become infected, they still want control. It is a strange human being that cannot see that he is incompetent and incapable. A very strange human being indeed! But these are the people the farmers have to deal with. SA’s farmers are clever, resilient and leaders in innovation. They have always managed their herds well until the ANC sought control. South African farmers admire the Brazilian method – beef farmers are left alone to manufacture and administer the local vaccines, overseen by government inspectors. The SA government’s obsession with total control could lead us down the Soviet path if they are not stopped. Every day millions of urban black South Africans purchase porridge and meat for their lunch. Over a million farm workers eat this same food for their lunch. Africans have always been meat eaters. Who will supply the meat now? The ANC?

THE CADRE DEPLOYMENT POLICY –  NO WHITES MAY APPLY?

Under the ANC’s Employment Equity legislation, party appointees and loyalists have been placed in government positions which they are incapable of satisfactorily executing. This has been a deliberate Ramaphosa plan, carried out year after year, no matter what he says about “quality people needed” to ‘get things right”. He has been talking about placing “quality people” in important posts for years, and it is no different this time around. Municipal services have been the ANC’s Achilles heel for so long now, and promises to “improve” that which was in perfect working order when the ANC came to power in 1994, are taken with a pinch of salt.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

In his address, the president declared that  “people are concerned about the state of local government and its inability to deliver basic services”. Correct! He said that “in many places, local government administrations are weak and are governed by patronage rather than technical ability and merit”.  Absolutely correct! He referred to the Auditor General’s recent report that local government is characterised by “insufficient accountability, failing service delivery, poor financial management and governance, weak institutional capability and widespread instability.” The AG also stated that arresting the decline of local government will “require our collective action”. Third time spot on! But then what should be the next logical step? Who is responsible for the collapse of local government? Why not get rid of the incompetents and replace them with the capables who can do the job. This will not happen. The ANC needs this inefficient army of state employees to keep them in power. It should be noted that the government has laid criminal charges against 56 municipalities. Why not get rid of the miscreants and replace them with competent people?

Instead of taking the decision to abandon his disastrous affirmative action/employment equity policies that have crippled South Africa, and have virtually wrecked local government, the president came up with yet another proposed panacea in his speech, a “revised White Paper on Local Government”. He might as well consult a sangoma as proffer yet another White Paper. He knows what he must do but he won’t do it.  Those thousands of incompetent municipal acolytes placed in their jobs by the ANC will stay put. They are voting fodder for the ANC.

It is clear the president speaks with forked tongue. At the same time that he tells us he “will ensure that senior officials in local government have the required qualifications and are appointed  through an INDEPENDENT PROCESS FREE FROM POLITICAL INTERFERENCE” (P.14 of the SONA speech), he is at the same time advertising for senior municipal, provincial and national staff in national newspapers with the proviso that employment equity and affirmative action will be adhered to in the job selection process. No whites may apply.

In four recent editions of the country’s prominent Sunday press, the following advertisements appeared for jobs in government. All the government advertisements stipulated, by inference,  that no whites need apply: Stats SA, Frances Baard municipality, Nongoma municipality, the Provincial Treasury,  Matitiele municipality, University of  Mpumalanga, SASSETA, the Cross Border Road Transport Agency, Inxuba Yethemba municipality, Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority, University of Venda, Nedlac, Northern Cape Provincial Administration, Gauteng Department of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (22 posts), Public Service SETA, Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, Gauteng Department of eGovernment, Gauteng Transport Authority, South African Tourism, Ugu District municipality, Limpopo Department of Education (20 posts), Hessequa municipality, Department of Education (6 posts),  Mvula Trust (development NGO),  Food/Bev manufacturing SETA, Miziko Museums of South Africa (government employer), Polokwane municipality, Department of Transport, Midvaal municipality, Department of Human Settlements (9 posts), Department of Cooperative Governance, Department of Social Development (9 posts), Steve Tshwete municipality, Kwa Zulu/ Natal province (6posts), Office of Health Standards Compliance  (OHSC), Agricultural Research Council (ARC), Endumeni municipality, Mine Health and Safety Council, Amatola Water, University of Fort Hare, Tshwane Economic Development Agency  (TEDA), The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA), Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO), Mossel Bay municipality, The Msunduzi municipality, Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality, Gauteng Partnership Fund, Thekwi municipality, Matjhabeng municipality, Department of Public Works & Infrastructure  (10 posts).

It should be noted that many municipalities and government departments now refer applicants to their websites, without giving any indication of employment equity preferences in the newspaper advertisement.

WATER

Who can go without water? Plenty of people it seems, although not voluntarily. Johannesburgers in particular are badly hit. The City of Gold residents were actually scrounging for water while the president was delivering his SONA address at Cape Town City Hall.  This was the president’s ninth SONA, and they are all beginning to sound the same. They have become a  “national ritual of big promises, ringing declarations and impressive-sounding numbers that will be all but forgotten when the next address rolls around”. (Sunday Times 15.2.26) This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the president’s integrity and even honesty, but he doesn’t seem to care.

For years now warnings have been sounded. They have been ignored. What government with any sense of basic survival, let alone credibility, ignores warnings?  Water specialists, some of the best in the world, have seriously alerted the SA powers that be. Of course there were promises made and task forces set up but little or no action taken. The ANC government is no different from their pals up north. R.W.Johnson made the remark that the ANC “stuck to the African script” when they took power. (See “South Africa’s Brave New World” ,2009).  A newly-released World Bank report says that between 600 000 and 900 000 people in sub-Saharan Africa lose their jobs each year because of water scarcity.  But what the World Bank says doesn’t seem to resonate with the SA government.  Johannesburg citizens  are currently shampooing their hair in the rain and rinsing from water gushing out of a drain pipe.

Did Johannesburgers ever envisage such a pantomime when they voted many years ago to “negotiate” with the ANC? Hundreds of thousands of the City of Gold’s residents have been without water for six weeks or more. In other parts of the country, it is months.  Residents have seen through Ramaphosa’s vacuous nature. They do not want commissions of enquiry. But what these poor souls will get is anyone’s guess. No one less than the Ramaphosa-appointed Auditor General Ms. Tsakani Maluleke told us (and the president) in December that “the authorities are guilty of poor planning and under spending”. Declared the AG: “Just over a third of the water authorities we audited did not have water maintenance plans or did not provide us with evidence to confirm the existence of such plans.”  Reasons for this behaviour are, in her words “inadequate coordination and collaboration across the sector, poor oversight, fragmented planning and inconsistent reporting”. She inadvertently exposed president Ramaphosa’s disastrous deployment policy, and his lack of oversight over what is going on in his country.  She concurs that “inadequate institutional capability, lack of skills, an overdose of vacancies, poor monitoring, weak accountability and lack of consequences” are the reasons for the current state of affairs.

The AG has landed her damning assessment on the president’s lap. Who else’s lap is responsible? The buck stops with the president. But there’s no admission of guilt in the president’s message to the nation.

ALL THERE IS!

The president’s speech was all- encompassing . He covered many facets of South African life. Not much was left out except the elephant in the room: who’s to blame for thirty years desecration of South Africa? If it’s not the ANC government, then who is it? No blame was appropriated in the SONA speech..

He mentioned the economy – it is “growing ”.  He is going to “improve ports, freight rail lines and restore the passenger rail system”. But who destroyed these elements of South Africa’s infrastructure in the first place? How can one “improve” on what one has destroyed? What would be the method of improvement? The highest matric pass in history”. Thirty five percent is a pass? Which sane country brags about a 35% pass? He is going to strengthen corruption laws? We already have corruption laws. We have laws for everything. But if corruption is embedded in one’s DNA, when employees and officials cannot resist stealing whatever comes under their purview, how does one change that DNA?  He is going to establish “a new criminal justice reform initiative”. He is going to strengthen the SIU and the NPA. With his appointees?  There will be an “effective anti -corruption body” and the “process of procurement where most corruption occurs” will be “restructured”. As yet no one has been charged as per the recommendations of the Zondo Commission. He could start right there with “restructuring” the NPA. He didn’t mention that 38 luxury dwellings have been hijacked in the upmarket Jhanesburg suburb of Bryanston. Other suburbs are in the firing line.

The bottom line? BEE will stay. Land “reform” will continue. Centralised control of every facet of the country’s economy  will remain. The president believes that “every SOE (state owned entity) must be under government control. So it’s more of the same. Will the electorate put up with this ad nauseum? Perhaps not. Is this the end of the ANC’s rope? Decidedly!