They died so we can speak

I said it before and I’ll say it again, what a time to be alive. I’m reading this book called Sapiens at the moment, an interesting account of humanity and what I’m realizing is that the current state seeming disequilibrium that I believe the world finds itself in, is nothing new. We’ve been having it as it were.

South Africa recently celebrated Freedom day, 27 April, a day a man once known as a terrorist by his oppressors and their friends, became rebranded and hailed as the father of Rainbow Nation, our unifier, Madiba. Did his terrorist ways change or did they now accept what he was asking for all along…the right to be treated as human in their own land?! I remember and am grateful for those lost souls.

With this remembrance in mind, I’ve booked my flight to Joburg, organized a flight special vote for Monday, but now I’m absolutely stumped. I’m voting because to the depths of my being I believe it is the right thing to do, but absolutely not because I am convinced to vote for someone. The saddest thing though is that I had the same feeling in 2014 when I cast my absentee vote in Accra. We hear of/from the likes of Black first land first, but in my mind they are like that damn mosquito when you really want to sleep, UDM lead by my former leader, during our time in the Transkei, the FF+ and new kids on the block Good amongst others, but allow me to pass some musings on the loudest 3.

The EFF

Man say what you will but these guys are popular and they definitely have changed the political landscape in South Africa. Prior to their appearance in Parliament, if I spent 5 minutes watching the Parliament channel on DSTV it would have been a lot, now I watch with interest and sometimes frustration with some of their tactics. They appeal to the youth and disenfranchised. I mean that march they orgainsed to Sandton a few years was something to behold, I can’t remember any other political party being able to pull off those numbers and these people were walking! They were the Kingmaker in PE, Joburg and Tshwane during the last local government elections. They have a bunch of younger adults who have great ambition and have refined their tact somewhat over the years. Their leader is a smart man, imagine what he could have achieved had the practices of the past, afforded his family the opportunity to provide him with better access to quality education in his younger years…who knows maybe that would have stifled him 😊. Many of their leaders have taken the opportunity to further their education and kudos to them…. BUT personally, I have huge reservations about them. A lot of what they espouse smacks of socialism and I’m not saying socialism doesn’t work, because there are a lot of Scandinavian countries that have a strong socialist tinge to it but their economies and systems are a whole lot mature than ours.

Anyone who has Venezuelan and Zimbabwean economies as role models may struggle to convince me about where they want to take an economy I contribute to, sure external factors such as sanctions play a role, but nah man. Their leaders have been embroiled in what some may I label unsavoury accusations regarding corruption and the downfall of VBS bank being the blot that seems to be booming, where the majority who stand to lose are \-those that can ill afford to part with their hard-earned wealth. They deny this but their denial has been quite muted, it bears no comparison to the boisterous remonstrations against a one Mr. J G Zuma. In a country as violent as ours, their leader threatens to throw a solid object at a fellow parliamentarian if I am not mistaken, their SG not once but twice (as far as I am aware) assaults someone, one of their top brass is recorded physically abusing a security officer and the one that grates me the most given this society where violence against women is already at such unacceptable levels, this attack on reporter Miz Brown. What kind of leadership is this I ask? On their manifesto, the highlights I managed to read place a lot of onus on government in respect of delivery. Land, jobs, construction…there was also once talk of nationalization of mines, banks, etc. government running things and creating jobs and getting things operating, yep we see how well that is going at the moment, even SARS the once darling of our state-owned entities…flopping!! In my very limited experience of government, government’s role is to provide CLEAR and workable policies and leave the private sector to create these things you aspire to achieve.

DA

The party with so much potential but dare I say a lot of navel-gazing results in them scoring own goals. Over the past few years I have been fortunate enough to work with a lot of its members and from my point of view well meaning people. The Western Cape’s Premier elect, Alan Winde is a man I’d go into battle with. A man who had a cosy job being minister of economic opportunities…CEOs, board rooms, fancy living. As soon as he got elected as premier elect, he was like forget this thing, let me go and understand what is going on in safety and security. Crime in this part of the world is one of the main things that is holding our people back from being great. Call it electioneering, popularity seeking, but whatever his perceived reason, he didn’t have to do it. They are far from perfect, but working with them to in some way help facilitate job creation in SOUTH AFRICA, makes my job not feel like work. If media reports are to be believed, their coalition seems to be doing a good job with the Tshwane and Joburg municipal finances which should allow for infrastructure upgrades hopefully.

BUT in my mind they just don’t seem to get it…

Things like saying that you are going to do away with BEE and look at a policy that looks at disadvantaged period. The thinking may make sense to you, but lets use an example that I like to use often, Heyneke Meyer, former Bok coach, picks his first Springbok team and I forget the exact number but a significant majority of the players picked were either Afrikaans or former Bulls players, now I don’t know the man so I’m not saying he’s racist, but what I’m saying is that unless guided out of your comfort zone, people will tend to revert to what they know and let’s face it, the South Africa economy is still largely in the hands of people of a lighter hue. If you don’t believe me come and attend any industry event we host here. 😊 one of the biggest arguments against BEE is that it allows for window dressing…hmmm. Many of us ask is Mmusi really the leader of the DA? I raised that perception that many of us have directly with him a few months ago. Some other people I have chatted to give me some talk of collective leadership…akin to Siya’s Bok captaincy…whaaaat?!! I digress. Some other random observations…I see a poster that says “Keep corruption out of the Western Cape” but wait did you not just spend the longest time getting beaten in court trying to get rid of one of your own because she was allegedly corrupt? A counter argument would be ya, but now she is gone, well the ruling party would then argue so is our main guy and we are working on the others…As long as there are humans in the system, there will be a place where we fall short. Another red flag for me during this whole saga was that I hardly heard from the leader of the party. There were 5 or so allegations levelled against her that to this day many ask me why she is no longer there and in as much as I may have my own assumptions, I have no answer that I am convinced of. Things like register to vote to keep the ANC and EFF out could easily be interpreted by those that will to read register to keep the blacks out. Some of my mates say but it is the truth, the property prices are so high that we can’t afford them. Newsflash, try buying in places like Luanda, Cairo, Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, some of those countries have ridiculous pricing with nowhere near the infrastructure and very little by way of credit facilities.

I’ll factually defend the good that is being done here against anyone who brings an emotional or perceived argument, because this province sure isn’t perfect, but there is plenty good being done here. The best maths pass rate in the country, healthcare within roughly 30minutes of 91.5% of the population, we’re disconnected from much of the world, tourism is an easy job creator, ok lets set up a project that will put forward business cases as to why airlines need to be flying here… aim was 4 actual to date is 14 new flights landed…so many micro things they get right that eventually makes the macro a better place. The result of interventions such as these is that the unemployment here is lower than the national average and the number of despondent job seekers is also less than the national average. But as I sit here, with my hand on my heart, I can honestly say I don’t know who you are, are you a wolf in sheeps clothing, just looking to protect the status quo? A lot of the noise coming out of the DA is about what the ANC and the EFF are, it's almost like they have been paid to do the marketing for their opposition. It's kind of like someone asking me, hey Yaw who are you and I answer, I'm not like Thanos....well burr, isn't that pretty evident? 

Now if I, who is seemingly closer to you doesn’t know who you are then what does it say about those further afield?

ANC

Oh prodigal ANC. I won’t spend as much time here, because their achievements and failings have been well documented for all to witness repeatedly. I’m hard on you because I expect so much more from you. I know you are now supposed to look after the well-being of 55mil people and not just 4 or 5 mil as those before you did, but surely after 25 years you must have gotten a grip on things other than the purse strings? I owe my ability to sit here, stare at my old University amidst the cloud cover, writing this mail, that allows me to voice my dejection, brought about, by what I believe to be our current leadership vacuum, to the fact that many in your fold and many aligned to you, lost and were willing to give up their lives so I can have such thoughts about actions due to be performed in the week ahead. The last 9 or so years could surely not be what people were willing to die for. You were willing to die so you could sell your country and services at its correctional services, amongst others for some steaks and booze? You were willing to die so that you could allow a once well respected and efficient power plant to degenerate to such a level that the economy is on its knees. You were willing to die so that 30 odd percent could be the pass rate at school? You were willing to die so the education system could be held hostage by a teachers union, with some members who I am lead to believe, wouldn’t even pass the grades they are supposed to teach. You were willing to die so that certain individuals could amass obscene wealth whilst the people you were willing to die for don’t even have running water or decent ablution facilities? You were willing to die so that the people you spoke in the name of would have homes built by your cronies that wouldn’t even last the first heavy rains? You were willing to die so some chief operating officer could take to the airwaves and proclaim 90% content on our local broadcaster, further crippling its already crippled financial situation. You were willing to die so that our national carrier could continue to flounder? You were willing to die so that you could cripple both our revenue collection services and our crime busters so those that rape the system could continue unabated. SURELY NOT?! Surely…

I will be honest, if president Ramaphosa was running on a different ticket my musings would have been shorter, because a lot of what he has done, as chequered as it may be in part, what he has done since taking office gives me some sort of hope. Things such as immediately taking over the levers of government that are key for the economy(finance, minerals and energy, public enterprises). They launched a few rather public commissions of enquiry, they have got a new National Public Prosecutor, a new revenue commissioner etc., but as with the DA, I am somewhat lead to believe that in some shape or form he is currently leading in concert because his is a pretty tight rope to walk given the current state of the party. The party needs to be put on terms. Even if they win they should be around 55% or so, so they faction that believes that the state coffers are their piggy bank are made to know that this is not behavior that the public expects from the party they have voted to govern them. They need to know that the shit that we are reading, I’m sure more is to come, IS NOT OK! If they get 60% plus they will be like what a bunch of buffoons we govern over, we can run amok and they will still come back to us…SHAME on us.

I mentioned a topic twice….’leading in concert’. Another conversation that has been floating in my head recently, looking not only at us as a nation, but the world as a whole, is what is the real use of politicians? I look at all the strife in the world and it is can be attributed to one sort of natural disaster or another, flood, fire, politicians 😊 Is a social construct of some sort not a better way to rule? But I guess that in a way would result in a figurehead leading the charge for such reform. Sigh…

I guess this confusion of choice leads me to another thought I’ve been having. This thing called democracy. Is it really working on this continent? I look at this country of ours and the same constitution, as great as the world sees it, gave us Nelson Mandela and also Jacob Zuma. We have the land of my birth, Ghana where land is split into kingdoms and chiefs and the elders have the greatest say. A lot of what we still rely on is infrastructure left by the colonial master and built upon by Kwame Nkrumah. Surely it has to be an indictment on us. We have a political system where it seems that every 8 years there is a change in ruling party and in many instances potentially useful projects (for the country) started by the opposition party are not continued by the new ruling party with some of the reasons being that once complete the credit will largely befall the opposition party that started the project. I mean have you ever??!! I look at a country like Rwanda, from where it has come from and its trajectory, it is nothing short of amazing right, some people may label its ruler as bordering on the undemocratic type, but some of the progress the country has shown in the amount of time it has, makes me wonder if it is indeed a bad thing? Some of the countries in South East Asia that we are often compared to, had similar situations where they had a leader with a vision and a group of people that he would rely on to deliver or question some of their thinking and now look at them…

This continent has most probably the youngest population of any of them, but some if not most of our leaders are amongst the oldest in the world. We look at a place like Zim, Bob was 93 when he got shoved aside by a now 77 year old Mnangagwa, Tunisias president is 93 this year, Cameroon’s Paul Biya 85, Nana Addo from Ghana, 75 possibly going to run again next year. People are talking about the 4^th industrial revolution and the presidents are saying please fax me notes on this (facetious I am, but you get the drift) We need some guided youth in our leadership echelons I’d say. The percentage of Africa’s population under 25 is 60% or so, surely some of these grandpas and great grand pas should be taking up the roles of the elder statesmen and guiding the youngsters into their roles?

In my utopian world I’d see a government made of all those looking to run for power, agreeing that the people first, then us. Every decision made or agreed to is made in order to see how the life of the average Josephine will be made better. I know that by definition narcissism is a trait synonymous with the term politician, but wouldn’t it be great if there is a new breed of politician who like most of us, gets a salary to deliver a job based on KPIs and goes out to make sure that they and their teams deliver on these things?

I have been trying to write this blog for a few days and man for some reason this evening as I sat here all these thoughts just started coming at me and I hope I articulated them well.

Fellow South Africans, next week please don’t be lazy, remember that many died so we could go and stand in queues to make our mark. This country is great and will continue to be great, I remember in 94 the amount of fear that reigned, but we went on to have the best economy we have had in the longest time. The last few years have been tough and the tensions amongst us as citizens, fueled by the politicians haven’t helped but I truly believe that if we found a way to disregard their noise and stood together we can fix this thing for all, mainly for those who don’t have, and trust me when I say if your heart is in the right place this place can be fixed. Go out there and make your mark!