David Makhura unafraid to call a spade a spade

It would probably be fair to say that Gauteng Premier David Makhura is more true to the ideals of the ANC’s avowed “bottom up” consultative process than a good number of the party’s elite, who tend to rule by dictate rather than discussion.

In short, he tends to listen to the complaints and concerns of the citizens he has been charged to represent … and then tells it as he sees it.

A case in point was his public admission during his State of the Province address last month that e-tolling – one of the least popular of measures foisted on Gauteng road users three years ago – had been a mistake.

“We can’t build roads and only later inform citizens that they must pay. In fact, there will be no e-tolls on our new roads,” he said at the time.

But speaking in Sharpeville during Human Rights Day, Makhura took what can only be described as a calculated political risk. “If we don’t deliver, there is no reason for you to vote for us,” was his forthright utterance.

In a climate of growing discontent on a lack of service delivery that harks back to the dawn of our democracy some 23 years ago, this is a telling statement of both Makhura’s intent to address the imbalances which still plague this nation. It is, we would suggest, a stance which he believes in and which, in any number of examples, runs counter to central government’s often despotic approach.

And although it espouses the right of the people to press for change through the ballot box rather than the burning of infrastructure, it puts Makhura out there up front and vulnerable.

For if the grassroots voters in Gauteng take Makhura at his word, and stay away in disgruntled droves, the ANC is exposed to the apathy which cost the party Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.

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