President Cyril Ramaphosa's "shock" at the dire South African situation tells us that he has been at the helm of a machine which does not understand the conditions it is trying to improve, writes Pearl Mncube.
As May 8 fast approaches, politicians have descended
from their ivory towers to convince voters to keep them on their high
pedestals. Most of them express their shock and horror at the conditions of the
majority of South Africans; from lack of sanitation, shack dwellings, lack of electricity
and water; the list goes on.
President Cyril Ramaphosa takes the cup in this
respect. He was shocked by load shedding; the state of Eskom; Metrorail and, most
recently, the state of Gauteng's townships. Makes you wonder where he has been
all these years. No wonder he variously called "Cyril Ramashocks", "Cyril
Shocked Ramaphosa", and "Cyril Ramashocka". The general
sentiment is that of a president who seems disconnected from the daily
realities of the people he governs. This is a terrible indictment of his
leadership.
Campaigning in Pretoria, Ramaphosa went aboard a
Metrorail train travelling from Mabopane to Bosman train station. The train
took two hours longer than scheduled to arrive at its destination. In true
Ramashocka style, the president expressed his shock at the dire state of Metrorail
and promised that the government would fix the operator. In his words, "I
am glad that I came and I have seen for myself. We are going to take steps to
change the situation", said the president. You wonder why it took him so
long to know what the rest of South Africa has known for decades already.
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Ramaphosa's shocking "shock" raises the important
question of the growing gulf between politicians and their constituencies. Considering
that he became deputy president of South Africa in 2014 and president in 2017, the
realities faced by South Africans should not be new to him. His shock tells us that
he has been at the helm of a machine which does not understand the conditions
it is trying to improve. Makes you wonder how public policy is made in this
country. At the heart of effective policy is the exercise of identifying,
challenging and fixing pressing issues.
The reality is that the lifestyle of the political
elite makes it difficult for them to be knowledgeable and truly sympathetic to
the realities faced by their constituencies. While priding itself as a party
that prioritises the needs of the poor and the marginalised, the EFF seems to
be doing a great job at failing to practice what they preach. The party has
found itself at the very centre of the VBS scandal, which only further
disempowered the people they claim to represent. The Ferragamo and Gucci-clad
revolutionaries have also been accused of mismanaging their own party funds.
The contradictions and inconsistencies are painfully amusing.
Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba found himself in hot
water delaying to meet with the people of Alexandra over their service delivery
concerns. Instead of prioritising their demands, the DA mayor went on to blame
the Alexandra protests on the ANC and, most recently, on disgruntled contractors.
The DA has been in charge of the area since 2016, giving them sufficient time
to initiate change in the area.
Mashaba's blame game and inability to prioritise the
genuine concerns of the citizens of Alexandra further proves the inability of
the political elite to sympathise with the needs and concerns of ordinary
people.
The Metrorail and many other incidents of "shock"
by our leaders do nothing to instil confidence about their connectedness to
their constituencies. It certainly puts paid to any notions that policy-making
is based on any scientific foundation.
After all, on what basis can leaders make policy
choices about matters they do not understand. Should we trust them to resolve
issues that "shock" them 25 years into this our democracy? Are we so
understanding that we would take their expressions of shock as genuine empathy
for the deleterious existential crisis that many South Africans call their
daily life? We do so at our own peril.
There is no excuse for politicians to remain out of
touch with the experiences of ordinary people. How else do our leaders expect
to generate effective solutions to society's most pressing concerns if they are
not fully immersed in them? While the elite turn a blind eye to society's
needs, ordinary citizens are left to bear the brunt of widespread institutional
and governance failures.
Efforts aimed at being "aware" of the
realities South Africans face should be deliberate and more frequent, and not
confined to the election period alone.
- Pearl Mncube is a public policy research intern
at Frontline Africa Advisory. She writes in her personal capacity.
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