Fiddlesticks with ‘challenges’, Mbaks

The Emperor Nero, so the legend goes, played tunes on a fiddle while watching Rome burn to the ground.

Our latter-day South African Nero, Fikile Mbalula, declares October to be “Transport Month” and places brass plaques on highway interchanges.

Nero, the head of the most powerful empire in the world up to that time, couldn’t care less what his subjects thought and was accountable to no one.

Mbalula, a career politician whose loyalty changes with the wind – but has gone from reward to reward within the ANC – is, in theory, someone who works for us, the taxpayers.

Unlike Nero, though, he is desperate to prove, through social media sleight of hand and photo opportunities, that he is a dynamo of efficiency.

In Transport Month, therefore, let’s take stock of the minister’s portfolio. No national airline to speak of.

A nonfunctioning commuter rail transport system, because the infrastructure has been pillaged … in no small measure due to the failure to put in place basic security systems.

A taxi industry which openly defies the government, the police and the law. A driver’s license and a vehicle license system which is in a crumbling mess.

An e-toll structure that most people don’t want and where only 20% of users actually pay. A road safety record which is one of the worst in the world.

It would probably take a month to catalogue all Mbalula’s department’s problems … oops, sorry, we mean challenges.

We have yet to see Mbalula or the ANC government – and to be fair, he only acts as part of a “cooperative” – do anything to address the pitiful state of the transport sector.

This country needs action, not action plans – of which Mbaks has talked about, aplenty. More arrests for looting and less posts on Twitter, minister.

Or maybe you should step down – to give violin lessons.

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