Marikana Report; will it ever be concluded?

Last Thursday I sat in front of my television to watch the Marikana Report as was delivered by president Jacob Zuma, and I was disappointed with the outcome.

For me, if the president had spent the past three months tying up loose ends in the report it should have been based on definite findings when he went public with it. However, he repeatedly said he was still assessing it, which seemed to indicate that the process was far from over.

What people wanted to hear, first and foremost, was that drastic action was going to be taken against the national police commissioner, the North West police commissioner and the police officers who were identified.

Secondly, what the opposition parties had implanted in the minds of poor souls who lost their loved ones, was that deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was guilty of having “ordered the killings” at Marikana, which, to me, was just politicking the issue.

Unfortunately, according to Zuma, he was exonerated from those charges.

That has infuriated the opposition parties to a point that they will leverage the Marikana Report right up to the local government elections during campaigns, forgetting on the one hand, that the constant mention of the word “Marikana”, doesn’t bring closure to the bereaved families, but more pain until politicians get what they want.

It will take some more months for the report to be pieced together and take the rightful actions according to its recommendations, but couldn’t that have been made in-between the time Zuma received the report and Thursday? Or was he also buying time? Procrastinating on such sensitive issues is not healthy for the nation, especially the ordinary men and women who suffer the most as a result of the hierarchy scratching or teasing each other.

It’s about time that our leaders thought of the man on the ground as very important in their lives because without them, there is no them.