I HAVE NEVER actually done a count, but we get scores of e-mails sent to us here at the Vryheid Herald, and I doubt if 5% have any relevance to us. Among those received are many from various government departments, often inviting the media to events at which some minister or the other is going to hand over something which we, the taxpayers, will have paid for, but for which the minister will take the credit.
Quite often we get sent copies of the speeches that public officials will be delivering at these events, which I suppose if you are a political correspondent saves you the bother of taking notes as the speech is delivered. Most often I simply delete them.
But last week, I was idly deleting all the last few days’ e-mail crap (sorry, that’s the only apt word) when I thought, Hold on, pal, perhaps you’re being unfair, even pre-judgmental, let’s see what one of these e-mails actually says. And the next one that I encountered was the “Address by the Deputy Minister of Transport, Honourable Ms Lydia Sindisiwe Chikunga on the occasion of the Budget Vote 35 Old National Assembly, Cape Town, 5 May 2015.”
This, as you can imagine, was possibly going to be enthralling stuff. This was going to be riveting material. This was going to have our esteemed parliamentarians on the edges of their seats.
Doris… sorry, not Doris, the Honourable Ms Lydia, as anyone at an official meeting should, began her speech by acknowledging the chairperson, in this case, since it was in Parliament, the Speaker. But she went further. She acknowledged EVERYONE! She said:
“Honourable Chairperson / Speaker, Honourable Minister of Transport: Ms Dipuo Peters, Provincial MECs of Transport, Honourable Chairperson and members of the Portfolio Committee of Transport, Transport Director-General: Mr Pule Selepe, Chairpersons of Boards and CEOs of Transport Public Entities, Distinguished guests, Members of the media, Ladies and gentlemen, Aunty Regina up in the public gallery, All my family at home listening on the radio…” Actually, she stopped after “Ladies and gentlemen”.
I don’t understand this, but I’ve been to government department meetings here in Vryheid, at which the speaker seems to have to mention everyone present, almost as if to indicate how important they are, how lucky the riff raff are to be in their presence, and you get the feeling that it would be political suicide to leave any one out. It’s quite pathetic.
So, anyway, old Lydia then grabs the governmental bull by its proverbial horns, and utters an opening sentence that had me gasping at its profundity. She said:
“South Africa is a nation in action”, which I suppose, she holding the Deputy Transport portfolio, intended to indicate some sort of movement. But then, you see, she’s unlikely to have said, “South Africa is a nation standing still”, is she? I mean, what does that say about the country let alone transport.
Then I regret to say Lydia lost me. I know there is such a thing as politispeech, a language that is known only to politicians, but I thought that I might understand the gist of her speech. She said:
“The Medium Term Strategic Framework 2014-19 prioritizes two over-arching areas, namely Radical Economic Transformation and Improving Service Delivery as the strategic themes and pillars for government over the next five years.”
What the hell…?
“My address today will focus on progress we have made thus far with regards to our priorities and actions we intend doing in 2015/16 financial year and over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework period. These priorities are indeed catalysts for the transformation of our transport system.”
Pardon? ‘Scuse me, what?
“Radical Economic Transformation is asserting and implementing game changing methods. To achieve this, government adopted the Big Fast High Impact Results approach; a key growth strategy for the development of our economy, which was launched as Operation Phakisa. The Initial Operations Phakisa focused on the Oceans Economy.”
Are you sh*tting me! It’s just gibberish. It means NOTHING. It sounds clever with all those catch phrases – overarching areas, strategic themes and pillars, priorities and actions, catalysts for transformation, game changing methods, key growth strategy – they’re all big words that string together sentences with less real substance than a aardvark’s fart. It’s just hot air!
And perhaps for the Deputy Minister of Transport to talk about “Big Fast High Impact Results” could best be described as indelicate. You don’t want big, fast, high impacts in transport, whether on the road, rail or in the air. Trust me. Big, fast, high impacts means DEATH, Lydia, DEATH.
Then, a little later, when Lydia made this statement, “We have a three thousand kilometer coastline, correctly positioned along the sea trading route”, I knew we were in trouble vis-à-vis making any sense of the address. It is a statement of such obviousness that you might believe she was talking to visitors to earth who might question whether a coastline was “correctly positioned”.
And I’m sorry, but the rest of the speech was similarly convoluted. Take this sentence: “To enhance its safety core mandate the Rail Safety Regulator has adopted a five-year plan in a phased-in approach on the revised risk based permit fee model.” What the hell does that mean? I’ll tell you, bogger all!
And you know what, in the entire speech there is not one single mention of what concerns us most about transport – flippen potholes!
What about the flippen potholes, Lydia? Mmm, what about the flippen potholes?
