Gauteng’s budget: A fresh coat of paint on a crumbling province?

When he emerged recently from his various luxury eyries to commune with the commoners in the province where he supposedly does much of his work – Gauteng – President Cyril Ramaphosa’s flabber was a bit gasted at its slow-motion collapse.

Welcome to our world, Comrade…

Still, it wouldn’t do to show off this tawdry state of affairs to the important guests at the G20 summit later this year, would it?

So, work is being done, allegedly, to put a bit of lipstick on the provincial pig.

Yesterday’s provincial budget, presented by finance MEC Lebogang Maile, shows the administration is preparing to throw buckets of money, once again, into the all-important areas of “service delivery”, “infrastructure development”, “education and skills training” and “combating crime”… to roll out the familiar cliches.

The first problem with Maile’s spending plan is that, allegedly, the ANC’s governing partner, the DA, was not consulted.

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That would have been fine in the good old days, when the ANC still held a majority and could pursue its “dictatorship of the proletariat” fantasies.

These days, unilateral decision making should not happen.

Hopefully, the DA will use its veto threat to push home the point to Maile and his comrades that the province should clean up its act (never mind its streets).

Corruption and incompetence must be dealt with firmly and there must be serious consequences for both.

Just as a reminder of how an out-of-touch government can blow billions lining the pockets of themselves and their cronies in the private sector is the fact that R5 billion of the Gauteng budget is going to help pay off the debt on e-tolls, perhaps the most ill-conceived project yet.

The resistance of the people, which collapsed that dodgy scheme, should serve as a warning: do not take us for fools and we have just about had enough.

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