Nothing short of a complete overhaul of the government and the governance model would do to turn our failing State into the great society it still has the potential to become.
The ANC as the governing party is the root cause of every element of the state of disaster they now want to declare. The ANC has over the past 29 years proven that it neither has the capacity, competence, nor commitment to the values of Ubuntu to govern our country effectively and accountably.
I am not holding my breath for the announcement of a new Cabinet. No ANC Minister is likely to have the courage to take the risk of doing what is right for South Africa and her people and to put a stop to the continuing state capture that is destroying our institutions.
State capture has become part of the ANC DNA from the 1990s with the Arms Deal to the failure to transform our education and health systems to promote the development of a critical-thinking, well-educated, healthy, and creative citizenry. Blackouts are the fruits of the mismanagement of Eskom from the time of the Mbeki Presidency, including the looting by Chancellor House using the procurement system to appoint suppliers in exchange for funding the ANC. The hollowing out of Eskom under the Zuma Presidency and continuing to date, has led to today’s blackouts.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his State of the Nation address in Cape Town, South Africa, On 10 February 2022. Photo: Nic BOTHMA/POOL/AFP
Citizens have to understand that the ANC is not only irreparably broken but prepared to take the country down with it. How else can one begin to fathom Lindiwe Sisulu’s outrageous proposal to sponsor Tottenham Hotspur by a government that has not invested anything significant in providing sporting facilities for millions of children and young people living in desperate poverty across our country? How else can one explain the total undermining of voter choices in the Gauteng Metros by installing puppet administrations that would enable the looting of public funds to fund the ANC that is unable to even fund its own employees, let alone have enough resources to fund the coming national elections?
Jeff Bezos, chairman of Amazon, reminds us that ‘In the end, we are our choices.” The 2024 elections offer us the opportunity to depart from the despair and resignation of many citizens to the notion that “better the devil you know”. Politics does not have to be the playground for devils. Politics is the forum for citizens to exercise their choices and hold accountable those to whom they entrust their votes. The ANC has proven that is incompetent, corrupt and totally immune to the pleas of citizens for basic services and decent living standards.
South Africans have the wonderful opportunity for a fresh start. We must leverage the power of the 18–45-year-old citizens, who constitute the majority segment of the voting population, to become the leaders who are able and willing to liberate our country and its people from a government that has turned rogue.
The ANC has thrown 70% of young people to the wolves symbolically, with 70% unemployment, and physically by thrusting them into unlivable human settlements. Young people have put up their hands and signalled that they are ready to govern and lead their country to the promised land that has eluded us thus far. The question for each citizen is whether we are ready to support our own liberation from the helplessness that has enabled the ANC to govern the country into the present state of disaster.
Dr Mamphela Ramphele has had a celebrated career as an activist, medical doctor, academic, businesswoman and political thinker.
In 1968 she enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Natal, where she became involved in the South African Students Association (SASO) and was a founder, with Steve Biko, of the Black Consciousness Movement. In 1976 she was detained under the Terrorism Act, and from 1977 to 1983 she was banned to Tzaneen in the Northern Transvaal.
She has a PhD in Social Anthropology, a B Com degree, a Diploma in Tropical Hygiene and a Diploma in Public Health. In 1996 she was appointed Vice-Chancellor of UCT. In 2000 she became a managing director of the World Bank, based in Washington, DC, a post she held until end of 2004.
