If the nation feels slightly unreal at times, this may be because it’s all acting. Nothing is set in stone or stable. Look at the evidence. We have an acting president with an acting deputy (yes, yes, yes, they’ve been sworn in but in fact have very little governing authority).
Three (by our count, but there may be more) important public enterprises are also in the charge of acting men and women. Transnet has an acting chief executive, as has South African Airways after the grounding of the high-living Khaya Ngqula this week.
The public broadcaster has an acting leader, an acting chief operating officer and two more group executives were placed on “special leave” this week.
In the crucial crime-fighting and criminal justice arena it’s all an act. The national police commissioner is suspended on graft charges and a little-known man is acting in his place. Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa has pointed out that this is a problem for slaying the demon of crime, but nobody seems to be listening to him.
The National Prosecuting Authority is headed by a fine chief, Mokotedi Mpshe, but he’s an actor nonetheless. This is because the real man, Vusi Pikoli, is — yes, you’ve guessed it — suspended.
The Scorpions may or may not have been dissolved, depending on who you listen to in the police management services, but their former head, Leonard McCarthy, is now sitting in Washington DC at the World Bank. Headless chickens or stingless Scorpions, either way, the organised criminal world is having a field day.
A memorandum from a frustrated union at the SABC makes the following apposite observation. “We can’t complain to the president because he’s on his way out. We can’t complain to the minister [of communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri] because she’s on her way out.”
Half the Cabinet is new and the other half can be said to be acting until next month because the electoral lists indicate they will not be back. We’re not quite sure exactly where the government’s being run from given that the Union Buildings, Luthuli House and Cosatu House all seem to think they are calling the shots. Add to this listing ship the fact that the rate of vacancies in the state are between 30% and 40%, which indicates that many public servants are acting too.
If we were a movie, we would be an Oscar award-winning one with all this role-playing going on. But we’re a country and a pretty good one, except for our unmoored government. The need for production and direction has never been greater. We hear Clint Eastwood’s been in town — perhaps it’s time to give him a call.
Nomakanjani
Jacob Zuma may think he is about to become president, but there is a truth that all drivers and commuters know well: in our country the 150 000 men who rule the roost are the taxi bosses.
As the industry has shown when it deigned to boycott us, the economy grinds to a halt without taxis. No doubt, the taxi industry is one of modern South Africa’s finest examples of free enterprise. It exists without state subsidy and keeps many industries in business, from the light delivery vehicle sector to the fuel industry and many inner-city retail precincts. Taxis keep the working class moving, thus ensuring a steady flow of labourers from the outer ring of cities and towns into the economic heartlands.
The taxi sticker “We stop anywhere. Anytime” is a truism that all South African drivers know, many to their peril. But on the other side of the hooter it means that taxis provide a convenient and still cheap trip for the majority of commuters who don’t own cars. The biggest drawback is that the trip is not safe; the sight of crashed taxis and broken people too often mark the end of a wild ride.
The taxi industry employs mainly young men who need little more than a driver’s licence to hit the road. Barriers to entry are few. They certainly seem not to require passenger or road etiquette. Bad manners and zero application of basic rules of the road seem sine qua non for the job. Which is why this week we’ve faced the spectre of the best mayor in the world (Cape Town’s Helen Zille) pulling out her blonde highlights in frustration at the spanner in the works that the taxis have thrown at efforts to introduce a rapid bus system. Jo’burg’s taxi lords are similarly obstructing Rea Vaya, the city’s planned rapid bus system.
In Johannesburg gleeful motorists have taken to chanting “Nomakanjani! [No matter what!]” as Jo’burg Metro cops throw drivers into the back of vans and shove their rude arses into the slammer. Finally. Justice.
By Thursday the drivers were doing what they do best: thumbing their noses at any effort at law enforcement. A plan to get the industry to exchange their converted delivery van skoroskoros for safer taxis has come to naught. For more than a decade, government has battled to get its recapitalisation project on track: by the latest tallies, only 20 000 had been scrapped. We don’t generally support iron fist policies, but Operation Nomakanjani gets the thumbs-up: ungovernability is so passé.