Ramaphosa’s criticism of Gauteng an own goal or awakening?

Which political party is the Johannesburg mayor from? Which political party is the premier of Gauteng from? Which political party is the president from? Sure, there are separations and other influences but how blind do you have to be to lament the poor state of our wealthiest province when you’ve collectively beenin charge of it?

It’s not like President Cyril Ramaphosa was wrong when he criticised Gauteng’s leaders.

If you stay ready, you never have to get ready so it must be pretty embarrassing to hear plans of “not a single pothole on the G20 route” as if it’s cool for things to be bad until the foreign dignitaries arrive. That’s right Joburgers. You don’t matter and neither does your service delivery. It’s only there when we need to look self-sufficient enough to engage with the world.

The optics is bad. The message is bad. The sentiment is bad. And Premier Panyaza Lesufi? He actually apologised. What is going on?

It’s been pretty evident that Johannesburg has been a shoddy skeleton of its exciting and promising rejuvenating glory days some 15 years ago. You’d think that the people who have been sitting in the power seats and the party controlling them could do a bit more than have one scold the other and receive an apology. Fat stack of good that does for the people who have been decrying the state of things for years already.

And why has Ramaphosa only become alive to the issue now, or at least vocal about it? What sort of administration allows a primary city to collapse without noticing?

ALSO READ: Can someone please give Ramaphosa a real tour of Joburg?

Sure, it’s nice to finally hear somebody in power say something about it, though I think we’d all agree that it would be better if that somebody in power didn’t have to say anything. And it’s not like the reason for saying something is being caused by anybody other than the people he’s overseeing.

It’s bizarre and probably strategically and politically unsound. But I can only guess he’s fed up with the poor performance of his teammates. Maybe that’s the success of the GNU; offering the president an opportunity to work with more competent and enthusiastic cabinet members? Maybe the president low key wants to get South Africa on the right track and bugger the political consequences? Maybe the president has made peace with the downfall of his party and is now focused on personal legacy?

Whatever the case, once we’re finished being confused by his friendly fire, we can start to be enthusiastic about what this means.

ALSO READ: Where were you when Johannesburg collapsed around us, Mr President?

It means that the president is actually engaging with service delivery and isn’t just pretending like it’s there. Five years ago, given the same situation, there would be no public rebuke from the president. At the very most, there’d be a lowball question at a presser with a generic response like, “We’ve identified some issues and are committed to resolving them.”

This is pretty big and obviously Cape Town has stepped in to add some coal to the fire; annoyingly but rightly so. If I had to host an event to impress the foreign world and had to select a South African destination… Durban’s out, Joburg is sketchy, Gqeberha has its own problems. The only place you could currently consider as ready is Cape Town and Geordin Hill-Lewis knows this which is why he’s rubbing in the salt and offering his city.

Of course, we know he’s not offering Khayelitsha any more than Jozi is offering Orange Grove. But if you compare the obvious choices within both cities, Foreshore probably easily beats out Sandown and it shouldn’t be.

Jozi has the destination airport. Jozi has the money. Jozi has the business. It’s in Gauteng which has the embassies and executive…and yet, here it is about to lose out to a place that offers a mountain, cold ocean and wine.

That says something that somebody should have woken up to years ago.