Charity begins at home, Ramaphosa

An irate talk radio listener recently screamed that “[President Cyril] Ramaphosa has all the time in the world to criticise Israel and try to bring peace to Ukraine, but cannot attend to crime on his doorstep”.

It is an observation that may seem condescending at first glance because it seems to suggest that the South African government does not have the capacity to focus on more than one issue at the same time, but the statement is somewhat true: charity begins at home.

Ramaphosa and his government can pursue, in fact must pursue charges against war crimes committed in the Israel-Palestine crisis, but their primary focus must always be at home.

The world is in chaos. It has been chaotic for several decades and the pandemic made sure that every country felt the financial squeeze of that chaos even more closely.

But countries that are concerned about their citizens and their economies have always made time to look inwards, to ensure that their citizens are better off despite the never-ending chaos that each day brings.

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South Africa’s biggest problem is unemployment.

It is thus disheartening to hear that the country’s biggest port, and coincidentally sub-Saharan Africa’s busiest shipping terminal, has waiting periods for ships to dock that extend to almost three weeks.

Add that to the fact that when the shipping containers have docked on the port, there is a backlog of thousands of containers that are waiting to be collected by trucks that form snaking queues outside the Durban port.

In other words, the system that brings goods into the country and takes goods out of the country for the economy to function is broken.

A recent snapshot of the port congestion in the world by an international body has shown the Durban port to be placed at 341 out of 348, just seven places away from being the most inefficient port in the world.

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So, it only makes sense that the world’s biggest shipping companies are abandoning South Africa’s ports for others on the continent.

That’s on top of placing huge levies on the containers that they deliver through these ports, meaning the price of whatever is being brought into the country skyrockets.

The president flying off to Ukraine or Russia when an economic crisis of major proportions is brewing and building up daily on his doorstep makes no sense.

However cold and callous it might seem to the people of Gaza who are under siege, the primary focus of Ramaphosa must be on undoing the three decades worth of damage that his party has visited on South Africa’s goods transport system, starting with Transnet.

Trucks queueing up at ports of entry and international companies choosing other countries as their preferred delivery station feeds the unemployment monster in this country.

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Add uncontrollable road traffic to that with the more than 15 000 annual fatalities from road accidents and it becomes clear that the abandonment of the rail transport system during the pandemic has had more far-reaching effects than meets the eye.

This past weekend, Ramaphosa urged people to register to vote, especially the youth. But the youth can see the gradual decay that the politicians – that their parents put in power – have done to previously beautiful cities like Durban.

The youth can hear that the people they vote for are shouting more about international crisis than the problems which they face. It makes sense that many shun polling stations.

A stronger South Africa with a more vibrant economy will have a stronger and much clearer voice than the current one.