A casual chat with a teetotaller friend on the harmful effects veered towards the direction of marijuana and how this herb would have done with better public relations.
He should know. He is a recovering alcoholic who is passionate about spreading the gospel of those who live with addiction, to know that they are not condemned to perpetual hell on earth.
He is also an MK veteran who has lost faith in the movement and party for which he was once ready to kill and die to advance its aims.
Inevitably we ended up talking about the performance of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The president, like alcohol, is a beneficiary of high level public relations. He has perfected the art of looking and sounding convincing even if he is doing nothing to justify such conclusions.
Ramaphosa not only created the impression that he was not part of what he called the “nine wasted years” — referring to his predecessor president Jacob Zuma’s tenure — but implied that he intended to fix this and move with some speed.
Look at us now. Speaking for myself, I would not like to partner the president in a radio quiz show where participants work against the clock.
We might never get to answer a single question as he takes forever to consider what might be a simple question or want to sound deep and thoughtful where there is no reason for such.
His ministers have joined him in this charade of looking busy and sounding like they are on top of things.
Speaking on the sidelines of the State of the Nation Address, communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni boldly stated that she and finance minister had given the SABC CEO powers of the board.
This is after Ramaphosa was once again “applying his mind” on appointing the board, four months after parliament gave him the names of those who should be in the board.
Apart from the vague “certain legal matters” pertaining to some unnamed board members, nobody really knows what is stopping Ramaphosa appointing those members who are not subject to whatever phantom questions he is supposedly probing.
Taking a leaf from her boss, Ntshavheni has not bothered to explain to civil society movements why she and the finance minister intend going ahead with what NGOs and those the public broadcast space say is illegal and goes against the precepts of the SABC Act.
What is worse, the SABC has denied to Sowetan that the CEO has received such correspondence from the minister. Without saying it in as many words, the SABC is saying that the minister publicly told a lie.
The least Ntshavheni can do is spin the lie. But she and her team do not feel moved to explain themselves to anyone.
Last week, the man who killed 8-year-old Tazne van Wyk was sentenced to multiple life terms. The man had been out on parole when he killed the little girl in February 2020.
In two weeks, it will be three years since justice and correctional services minister Ronald Lamola promised that he would amend and review the parole system to ensure it is victim centric and community-orientated.
To this day, nothing has happened or if it has, it is kept as top secret for the knowledge of a selected few.
At the time of writing, Ntshavheni or Lamola’s spokespersons had not responded to requests for updates. In Ntshavheni’s case, this was more than a week since she was requested to respond.
Who can blame Lamola and Ntshavheni when they have a boss who does not put too much stock on acting urgently on anything?
For all the fanfare of the importance and urgency of having a minister of electricity and declaring the energy crisis as a state of disaster, we are, in practical terms, exactly where we were on Christmas Day.
Since announcing that the gazetting of the emergency nature of the energy crisis, we remain in the dark — often literally about what is expected to happen next and by whom and by when.
We are supposed to swallow how the president is applying his mind and looking into all possible implications of the decision he is required to make.
SA deserves better than the carefully constructed and media friendly sound bites. We need a head of state and ministers who appreciate that this is not a congeniality contest but often matters of life and death, as in little Tazne’s case.
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