Let’s call a spade a spade. If you put our massive national cabinet in a brewery and told them to organise a party, they would fail. Spectacularly.
The 27-day-old presidency of Donald J Trump in the US illustrates just how a political leader who has a clear agenda can walk into office, implement his election pledges and get results almost immediately.
Like him or hate him, Trump is showing us something that our president and his cabinet’s tenure has lacked — action.
Indeed, Trump’s time in office is remaking his country and the world in a manner that our “revolutionaries” here at home have failed to do in 31 years in power.
Instead of “action”, instead of a “revolution”, in South Africa we have been subjected to decades of promises, lekgotlas, bosberaads, meetings, conferences, resolutions and more promises.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation speech last week was like the numerous others he has made since 2018. He promised and promised and promised.
How about a speech that says: “we have done this and that”? The ANC has been given power time and again, and it has failed to exercise it.
Put a microphone in front of any South African and they will have something to say about Trump.
Whether it’s his spectacularly ill-informed view on the “plight” of Afrikaners in their home country or whether he will punish SA by kicking it out of the trading agreement Agoa (African Growth Opportunity Act), South Africans have a view.
The one thing we are not talking about enough is that Trump does something our leaders don’t seem to understand they should be doing — he works.
In just the 27 days he has been in power he has signed numerous new executive orders (in the US system, these are directives the president gives to civil servants to action projects without having to consult Congress) and upended not just his country but a large chunk of the world as well.
The man is not sitting on his hands. He vowed in his inauguration speech that his actions would amount to a complete restoration of the US and, whatever that means, he has started on that journey.
On his first day in office Trump signed, by my count going through the White House website, 49 executive orders that withdrew the US from the Paris climate accord, rescinded 78 regulations established by his predecessor Joe Biden, ordered all departments and agencies to address the cost-of-living crisis, stopped government censorship, withdrew from the World Health Organisation, and declared a national emergency at the US border with Mexico so that he could deploy troops to stop the “invasion” of undocumented immigrants.
There were many more over the next few days, including one which begins the process of “punishing” SA for land expropriation and its stance on Israel’s bombardment of Palestine.
Let me now bring you back home to SA so that you can weep.
On Sunday June 30 2024, Ramaphosa announced his new cabinet.
Instead of continuing to shrink the cabinet, as he had been threatening since February 2018 when he first became president, he announced an unnecessarily bloated cabinet of 32 ministers and 43 deputy ministers. What do these 75 individuals do every day?
Ramaphosa then said he would organise a national dialogue. What is a national dialogue and what will it achieve?
It is nothing but a talk shop, really, because the GNU players have all read the National Development Plan. Why develop a new one?
This was on June 30. We are now in the eighth month that he has been in power and we still do not know what the agenda of this dialogue is, when it will be held, who is coming, and what impact it will have on GNU policy.
As if that is not enough, on December 16 2024 Ramaphosa announced that he would appoint an advisory panel of eminent persons to provide guidance and advice through the national dialogue process. He would also appoint a national dialogue steering committee.
“All the necessary structures and processes of the national dialogue will be in place early in the new year so that the preparations can commence in earnest,” the president said.
So here we are, in month eight, and we still haven’t organised a chat among ourselves. Seriously, is this a joke?
A country with some of the worst rates of unemployment, murder, inequality and rape in the world takes eight months — eight months! — to organise a discussion forum.
When do you think the resolutions of this national dialogue will be implemented? In 2050?
In his first month in office, Trump has showed us that our leaders are lazy, unmotivated, have no plans or priorities and are unable to implement anything with speed.
How did we vote such an incompetent bunch into power again and again since 2009?
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