ANC’s way of being a government of reaction is disheartening

There is nothing more demoralising and disheartening than the ruling party’s way of being a government of reaction as opposed to one of change and being proactive. Townships burn and all the government can do – and has been doing for the past 20-plus years – is react.

Government leaders feel no shame in walking around squatter camps littered with the tin roofs of shacks with an air of poverty permeating the air.

The settlements are named after struggle heroes: Winnie Mandela in Tembisa, Steve Biko informal settlement in Wesselton and Ramaphosa settlement in Reiger Park. These names should inspire leaders to act for the people and yet, they remain in the abyss of poverty.

The government’s leadership skill set has been put to the test time and again. And every time they have failed. Now, illegal mining literally has a choke hold on the country. Children die daily after being kidnapped and raped. And in the midst of this, a minister with a hat shows up for photo opportunities after the trauma.

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Where are the intelligence units, the strategic planning teams, the monitoring tools to aid the government to formulate a prevention plan as opposed to seemingly playing catch-up all the time? The failure is not just in government but in all spheres of governance, down to the opposition parties that serve as an oversight mechanisms.

The Democratic Alliance and other parties shout that the ANC is failing, but what have they done to encourage us to transfer power to them?

In KwaZulu-Natal, the politically motivated bloodbath demonstrates the failure of the Inkatha Freedom Party, the ANC and the National Freedom Party to provide leadership. The gang wars and racial tension in the Western Cape show the DA’s leadership failure.

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There’s a service level failure not only by the ruling party, but by every party that occupies a seat in parliament. The opposition are just bench-warmers if they cannot motivate the powers that be to be preventative as opposed to exhibiting this continuous reactionary tendency that takes us nowhere.