President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech at Sunday’s family meeting on the Covid-19 pandemic was a lesson in dishonesty. If he’d been given a truth serum before he’d started it, this is what he would have said:
Fellow South Africans.
It has been some time since we last held a family meeting because, quite frankly, I have been scared stiff about coming before you as we, your government, lost complete control of the pandemic. The experts are right, we have one of the lowest vaccine rollouts in the world, with the result that fellow citizens are even running to Namibia and Zimbabwe to get their shots before coming back home. Do you realise how embarrassing that is to us as government? The most powerful military on the continent, the smartest scientists south of the Limpopo, the world’s best rugby team and we can’t even put a bloody jab in your arm?
The truth pill is now about 50% absorbed into the blood.
Prof Shabir Mahdi, one of the world’s leading vaccinologists, was correct when he posted on Twitter this week: the trickle of vaccines is not only about vaccine nationalism, but also about government being asleep at the wheel a year ago when other nations were negotiating access to these life-saving drugs.
The prof is right: “There should be consequences, as thousands more lives will be lost to Covid-19 in the next few weeks.” Oh crap, I can’t believe I just confessed that to you, but then again, it is my government that gave you Life Esidimeni, where 143 people died at psychiatric facilities in Gauteng for reasons including starvation and neglect. I am also happy to announce that the Gauteng MEC responsible for that tragedy (Qedani Mahlangu) is about to be invited back to the provincial executive committee of my party! You heard the joke about the acronym for my party: Absolutely No Consequences.
The truth pill is now fully absorbed into the blood.
So why on Earth do you think my government cares about getting mass vaccinations to all our people? So long as we are vaccinated, you really don’t matter. Are you blind? Our children attend the most elite private and public schools in SA, while some of yours still attend schools with pit latrines. Of course, we can easily fix the remaining 2,000 dangerous holes in the ground, but we simply don’t care because our own children are cotton-woolled in these former white schools.
So what’s the strategy when we as government mess up over and over again? We blame you. It is called deflection. Just imagine my effervescent MEC for education in Gauteng moved at the same speed to root out corruption in that scandal concerning the deep cleaning of schools (a wasted R430m!) as he does to expose racism at Cornwall Hill College; our problems would be solved tomorrow. You, the public, are so gullible and so we deflect. Slow, drip-drip rollout of the vaccines? You are the problem. You don’t wear masks. You don’t socially distance. You go to weddings and funerals (how dare you!). You stay out late at night. You even drink alcohol. It’s you, not us.
The second type of official deception is called avoidance. Common sense dictates that when you have a deadly health crisis, leadership matters more than ever. You know as well as I do that there is no way we can bring this pandemic under control when my minister of health sinks deeper into the quicksand of corruption every single day. R150m of government money spent on his friends to make the minister and his department look good. Only to hear that some of that money came back to the minister for maintenance on one of the family properties, to bankroll his son (R300,000) and the latest, to purchase a Land Rover for the spoilt brat.
I should fire the minister of health on the spot for the sake of the country because he is certainly not going to “step aside” in the face of the crisis. I desperately need a leader in cabinet who is 100% focused on the supply and logistics of the vaccine rollout to save the lives of thousands of South Africans. But the truth is, I really don’t care and so do not expect me to talk about the elephant in the room or allow journalists Q&A time after the family meeting because they will surely make mincemeat out of the pachyderm. Avoidance is better than cure.
The truth pill is now losing some of its potency, its effects wearing off.
We have secured enough vaccines. They will be produced in Gqeberha. The vaccines are held up in the US. All three things are true.
“I ask you to summon your strength, your courage and your tenacity as South Africans to stand together and hold back this third wave.”
Moses must be laughing in his tomb.
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