BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI | There’s a pot of holes on the road to the Rainbow Nation

Before the G20 summit in Johannesburg last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa uncharacteristically — and rather pompously — lashed out at his comrades who run the city about the preponderance of potholes.

Such gaping craters, he complained, were a blight on the country and would embarrass him around his honoured guests, the fellow presidents attending the meeting. Not that his slothful comrades don’t need a ticking off but it was a bit rich coming from someone who’s woeful in his job; he certainly hasn’t set a fine example.

A snake rots from the head. But also, Ramaphosa, a resident of Johannesburg, was talking as though he had just landed from Mars. Residents have been complaining ad nauseam about the grime in the city, potholes, broken traffic lights and even sewage running down the streets. It’s almost become normal for residents of Africa’s biggest metropolis to go for days without water and/or electricity. But when he was running the risk of losing face with his distinguished guests, he was quick to call the kettle black. It’s all about him.

The presidential intervention seemed to rouse the doddering municipal officials into action. Workers fanned across the city, fixing traffic lights, cutting grass verges and patching potholes. But hardly six months later the potholes are back with a vengeance, bigger and more menacing.

Ramaphosa should have fixed his attention elsewhere, the stretch of road from OR Tambo airport to Johannesburg, all 8km of it, part of the R24 and christened the Albertina Sisulu Freeway in honour of the antiapartheid icon.

Probably because they often drive fast, motorists hardly notice the dilapidated state of the road and its surrounds. It’s a depressing and embarrassing eyesore that doesn’t seem to have seen any maintenance for years. But you can bet your bottom dollar that a tender was granted to some lucky fish who pocketed the money and never did the job. That’s how we roll. The side of the road and the central reservation are overgrown with grass and weeds; and at this time of the year, the clumps have turned dry, brown and unsightly.

In some parts, trees have been cut down and whoever did the job forgot to clean up, leaving branches lying untidily around. One area has been set on fire, probably to get rid of unwanted shrubbery, or by a homeless person trying to keep warm.

The flags emblazoned on the side of the road, probably to proudly welcome visitors to the country, are almost covered, and desecrated, by the unkempt grass. Then there are the mangled steel barriers along the road. Someone has seen no need to fix them or even remove the wreckage. Some parts of the freeway have no barriers at all.

The other curious thing is that the people who run this place, the politicians, including Ramaphosa himself, travel on this freeway regularly to and from the airport — and obviously don’t see anything wrong with it

The entire stretch of the freeway to and from the airport is almost completely dark at night. As many as 90 electric lights are not working at all, many of them even without bulbs, many of them even without bulbs. The poles stand forlornly erect like humans with their heads chopped off, and loose electric cords dangle mournfully from some of them. One or two electric poles, probably victims of reckless driving, lie bent and broken at the roadside. Plastic bags full of rubbish litter the length of the road. Maybe the people responsible will collect them, in their own time. Maybe they won’t, and nobody will ask why. And the ubiquitous shopping bags, our national flower, are decorating the place everywhere. Why make a fuss about a short stretch of road, you may ask? Given the state of affairs in the country, with the corruption and the incompetence, aren’t we making a mountain out of a molehill? We obviously have dirtier and grimier places.

But this is the gateway, the first part of the country that visitors — tourists, businesspeople with money to invest and, yes, your heads of state — set their eyes on right after leaving the airport.

It tells them about the type of country we are. First impressions count. Millions are spent every year on promoting the country abroad. With a reputation as crime-ridden, with a corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy, we’re up against it already compared with other countries. Imagine having spent millions to convince the doubting Thomases to ignore all the scary stories and visit the country, only to be greeted by dark streets, potholes and overgrown verges immediately they leave the airport? It undermines our message and is a betrayal of the country. What, in God’s name, for instance, makes a simple thing like cutting grass so impossibly difficult for somebody happily earning a salary?

The other curious thing is that the people who run this place, the politicians, including Ramaphosa himself, travel on this freeway regularly to and from the airport — and obviously don’t see anything wrong with it. And the fact that the freeway is named after their struggle hero doesn’t seem to mean a jot.

Maybe we should be more considerate. The view from behind the tinted windows of those fat cat limousines can be rosy. Also, given that the ministerial handbook demands that blue light convoys travel at high speed, it can often be difficult for the hard-pressed occupants to get a proper view. Everything becomes a blur.

This democracy is essentially about making life as comfortable as possible for the politicians, the aristocrats, and effectively shielding them from the absolute nirvana they’ve diligently created for the masses. They aren’t meant to see these things. They distressingly offend their sight.

The R24 is a provincial route and therefore the responsibility of the Gauteng government under the loquacious but highly incompetent Panyaza Lesufi, the premier.

As usual, he’ll be all talk and no action. Until possibly Ramaphosa summons up the courage to express his displeasure.