This is Ramaphosa’s last chance to redeem his legacy

The daily news in South Africa sometimes looks as though it could have come from a Monty Python comedy sketch.

Yesterday, for example, we reported on the progress of the president’s Red Tape Reduction task team and what it has achieved in the past year.

It is 12 months since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the formation of the task team as a priority, and it is currently, according to its head, Sipho Nkosi, “working on defining red tape…” We kid you not.

Red tape slows down all sorts of governmental processes – not least investment, which leads to job creation – so it boggles the mind that this unit has basically achieved nothing in a year and become bogged down in its own red tape.

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But naturally, all involved were well paid for the time and whatever effort they have put into this “crisis intervention”.

This is not to single out the red tape unit, because its example is repeated across our governmental structures and is a major reason why nothing of substance ever seems to get done – and why Ramaphosa’s grandiose promises seldom come to fruition.

The beginning of a new parliamentary year and the State of the Nation Address should be the opportunity for the ANC to start from scratch … and genuinely start trying to wrest the country out of what is increasingly looking like a death spiral.

We need a stable power supply. We need a professional and committed police service. We need effective service delivery at all levels of society.

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We need to make South Africa an attractive country for investment because – whether the ANC’s socialist-included comrades like it or not – jobs are created by private sector money, not the rands bled from taxpayers.

Ramaphosa has made promises on all of these issues, repeatedly. Yet, as the State of the Nation Address rolled around again, matters have deteriorated. However, because our politicians – as they demonstrated at the opening of parliament yesterday – still live in their own comfortable, taxpayer-funded bubble, they don’t seem to grasp how serious the situation is.

This week, the Consumer Goods Council issued a despairing plea to Ramaphosa to sort out the Eskom crisis … because failure to do so is going to probably result in shortages on the shelves of our shops.

Whether he responds to them the same way he did to the private sector last week, by telling our businesspeople to “stop moaning”, remains to be seen.

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The bottom line is that South Africa is at a tipping point. The camel’s back is already bent and bowed and won’t tolerate much more before it breaks. And that could mean massive social upheaval as hungry, angry people take to the streets, protesting against the government but also, worryingly, turning their anger on others.

This is Ramaphosa’s last chance to redeem his legacy. He should be known as the man who helped save South Africa, not as the guy who was asleep at the wheel while it careered over the precipice.

It is also the last chance to save the dream of Nelson Mandela and the others who gave their lives in the struggle against apartheid.

If Ramaphosa and the ANC don’t take decisive action, the rest of the world will increasingly regard us as just another corrupt, incompetent African basket case, where life is nasty, brutish and short.

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