Time to deal with the zama zamas

The ANC has amazing talent. Let that sink in for a moment.

Not – you are correct – at running a country. Nor at building a “better life for all”. But they are masters – and mistresses – of the use of the diversionary photo opportunity.

While the country burns and collapses, a minister might rush off to a school accused of racism.

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Or another might propose a R22 million flagpole, while others might try to bask in unearned glory by speaking about the triumphs of Banyana Banyana.

But it takes some kind of chutzpah to send your ANC supporters onto the streets to protest against a situation which is the direct result of your own incompetence.

Yet, that is what the party did yesterday outside the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court, when its supporters picketed about the alleged gang rape of women at a film shoot on an abandoned mine dump.

The attackers are alleged to be illegal zama zama miners – illegal both in terms of immigration status and in terms of their mining of abandoned gold mines.

Their activities have been known for a long time and they have terrorised the people in the area for years. Yet the cops have done nothing.

The immigration authorities have done nothing. The government – read ANC – has allowed this boil to fester.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says – without the slightest hint of irony – that the protests are “part of our obligation as a liberation movement”.

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No, minister. Firstly, the country has already been “liberated”. The old rhetoric is well beyond its sell-by date.

You are a government now and have been for more than 28 years. Your obligation is to protect your citizens.

It is not too late to make amends for your failure to do that. Crack down on these thugs. Don’t waste time on pointless protests.