Mashaba urges post coronavirus government to repay public, political trust

Experience from the coronavirus should, when it ends, be the beginning of serious soul searching by the national leaders on the way forward for the country.

This, according to Herman Mashaba, the former mayor of Joburg and leader of the People’s Dialogue movement.

“By then, chickens will have come home to roost, the economy battered, morale will be low and the nation will be requiring a boost which will only come from a leadership with foresight,” he said.

“This will be a test requiring change in the behaviour of government, commitment to the Constitution and its values, accountability, transparency, people-centred service delivery, and an end to [alleged] corruption that has already collapsed the economy.”

He added that only a wise and mature leadership would learn from the experience of the lockdown. It should adopt new and proper measures of governing the country to show respect to the trust it received from a united front of all political parties, civic society and the business community during the lockdown. “Good governance is the only payback the nation wants and deserves from its government.”

Mashaba claimed that trust was lost during the entire tenure of the democratic government due to alleged corruption which could have been stopped through good governance. “This could have saved resources which should have built thousands of houses that could have mitigated the concern about the virus spreading, particularly in overcrowded informal settlements like in Alexandra.”

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Mashaba said if residents had decent housing, they would be encouraged to comply with the measures of mitigating the virus such as social distancing, staying indoors and exercising proper health and hygiene. Without corruption, he added, a proper and reliable public transport system could have been created to enable essential service workers to comply with social distance measures when they travelled to work.

This, he said, would have been in addition to an enabling environment being created for businesses to thrive, invest, partner and provide government with essential products and services required expeditiously in the current crisis situation.

He alleged that corruption was allowed to continue at national, provincial and local government levels through draconian laws which eroded all the democratic gains. “It stalled development when public resources were channeled away from public service and caused decay in the inner-city of Joburg, and created slums in Alexandra and elsewhere where there is fear of the virus spreading uncontrollably.”

Mashaba claimed that his three-year old administration of the City sought to have a clean government but was hounded out of power by a ‘criminal element’ he said prioritised self-interest and misdirected essential resources that could have protected, particularly poor citizens, from the crisis posed by the virus. “This crisis, likely to spread in the informal settlements, will have been man-made through the bucket toilets which make it difficult for residents to practice proper health and hygiene.”

Mashaba also attributed the corruption to draconian laws he said were purposely implemented to encourage unethical practices which stifled economic growth and relaxed controls at borders resulting in criminal elements flocking easily into the country. “This wiped out opportunities for businesses with genuine interest in job creation to thrive. It instead, created a culture of illegal money lending which exploits the poor when they lose jobs by offering them credit at inflated interest rate.”

He urged for a renewed government which he predicted would be faced with the aftermath of a crisis that is compounded by a five per cent decline in the economy which is already being downgraded to junk status. “The worst casualties of this negative status will again be the poor who will require divine intervention if government returns from the crisis unreformed. It’s frightening as no one will want to lend us money leading to many jobs being lost.”

He urged a reformed government to also mitigate the economic challenge by pursuing and using money recovered from those fingered in corruption to prop up essential services in poor communities. This, Mashaba said, will help to quell anger and a likely restiveness society if conditions do not change and small businesses in Alex remain closed.

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