Can we celebrate by doing a monthlong door to door?
On Saturday evening I received such an inspirational WhatsApp message from Gauteng’s ANC deputy chairperson, Panyaza Lesufi who wrote:
“Can we celebrate by doing a monthlong door to door? We need to thank voters in their homes. The only people
who benefit from celebrations are DJs, artists, catering companies, alcohol companies, sound and stage lighting and
bus companies.
“It’s not branch members who travel far in a bus on an empty stomach to go to celebrate while others enjoy the views, the best food and expensive booze.
“Let’s stop with this waste comrades. “I don’t understand these celebration events! There is nothing to celebrate.
Actually, we need to convene at a national service delivery monitoring conference to redefine our service delivery machinery.”
This was a mouthful from a person who is the perfect example of a sound politician who has led by example for the past few years in Gauteng. He has been able to turn around the Department of Education in his province to very high standards and digitised schools from rural to urban.
He’s hands-on governmental and community issues at all times.
How do you grow it when you demonstrate your wealth with expensive booze brands that could help a number of
families survive abject poverty if it was directed towards them?
How do you grow the country if you direct millions of rand towards a celebration event of which the funding could have been directed at directly building houses for the homeless and poor?
If our politicians perceive themselves as socialists, their current tendency of splashing money in the face of poverty
isn’t socialism, to say the least – that’s a tendency they should rid themselves of because their public behaviour on a daily basis, is what the electorates judge you on during election time.
What the people are demanding this time around is hard-working and corruption-free governance and a caring government with no stupid egos, but men and women who fully understand their mandate to the people, which is to deliver services indiscriminately across the whole spectrum and colour line.
Then they will begin growing South Africa together for the next five year and beyond.
