If the truth be told, President Thabo Mbeki did not need to go on the imbizo that ended in Mpumalanga’s Ga-Manoke village last week, to understand the concerns of his people.
This is not to say that the president wasted his time. Nor does it mean that it is a futile exercise for people to meet their elected public officials. Each village and town has its own nuances and idiosyncracies, and the country’s number-one citizen can surely learn a thing or two by paying them a visit. But government programmes and policies are hardly ever decided on the basis of a particular village’s unique needs.
Izimbizo are aimed at providing an opportunity for ordinary people to have face-to-face interaction and engagement with the president. It also gives them the opportunity to raise their concerns and suggestions directly with Mbeki, the premiers and local government leaders.
Mbeki told the journalists in-tow that izimbizo were not about making speeches, but a chance for him to listen to ordinary people. It also explains why he was irritated by questions from stakeholders.
“I was impatient with some of the questions because they were child-like and because they know the answers. And given that they know the answers it is for them to find solutions — to be leaders and sort it out.”
It was therefore inevitable that the master of ceremonies at Ga-Manoke had to plead in vain with the villagers not to raise the fact that they lack electricity and running water. Speaker after speaker told the president that he or she was dying of thirst.
It was their day, their president and their woes. Nobody was going to deny them their moment. Like others elsewhere, the people of Ga-Manoke say they would be happy to have jobs. One villager told Mbeki that he believes his village has the potential to produce football players who could make up the World Cup side in 2010, if not for the fact that they don’t have a sports ground.
For the umpteenth time, racism was raised. Communities said police often gave the impression they were on the side of the criminals. Mbeki knows and has heard all that before.
Some told Mbeki that they had trekked from faraway towns and villages just to have an audience with him. For sons and daughters of the village Mbeki chose, it was a proud moment. The visit is as epoch-marking as “Where-were-you-when JFK was killed” for their otherwise insignificant dot on the map.
But beyond everybody feeling good about the government of the people going to the people, and the people pouring their souls out to the government, it would be stretching it to pretend that izimbizo are a mandate- collecting exercise.
Even Mbeki acknowledged that in many of the communities he visited the complaints have been the same: poverty, lack of development, unaccountable public officials. Electricity, sanitation and water are still high on the wish-lists of remote communities.
The visits to the towns, townships and villages were a small reminder about the urgency required in Africa’s need for a new plan for development. The hundreds of people who eke out a living selling cool drinks, food and cigarettes in Ga-Manoke and other villages Mbeki visited are the people the president is talking about when he refers to the second economy.
The defining moment of the imbizo was when a woman told Mbeki that all she was asking was that the government leave the area with an undertaking that it would make at least one promise come true.