EDITORIAL | Mr President, it’s crass to flaunt your wealth while citizens starve

For South Africans, many of whom are in debt and dread rising interest rates as they do fuel costs, life is a daily struggle that their president, Cyril Ramaphosa, can only read about. He seems firmly ensconced in a parallel universe of luxe and exotic wants. His, it appears, is a life divorced from the harsh realities of South African life.

If not, how else can we explain his participation in an auction that netted him a cool R10m at the weekend, with one of his Ankole cows sold to his brother-in-law Patrice Motsepe for R2.1m? The latter, the biggest spender, splashed out R4.7m on four Ankole females. How wonderful, we must all respond, right?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, ordinary South Africans are battling debts. The SA Reserve Bank says that South Africans are spending 75% of their net salaries on debt. And, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, just about half of those with debt were unable to service it. In addition, many are grappling with unemployment which is at the highest it has ever been. They are also grappling with inequality which, yes, you’ve guessed it, is also the worst in the world. 

Our cry is simple: read the room, Mr President. This is not the time to be selling or buying expensive cows, unless the proceeds are used to help many who are struggling to make ends meet.

As you read this, the country’s power utility, Eskom, is subjecting citizens and companies to blackouts, not load-shedding as the bright sparks at Megawatt Park would have us refer to it. Others, sadly, are relieved that they will continue to receive their R350 for the next 12 months. As a nation, we must feel good that they’re getting something from the state and possibly could also create their versions of ice-cream shops using the R350, like the Thando Makhubu story that Ramaphosa referred to during his state of the nation address last month. For these wretched of the Earth, spending R2.1m on a cow must beggar belief. You’d hope that someone would politely tell Ramaphosa: “Read the room, Mr President! Your people are in great pain. Your people can’t make ends meet. And you seem completely disconnected.” 

Away from the cows, Ramaphosa shows no sense of urgency in dealing with the national pain points. What, for example, is the hold up in the appointment of the chief justice? Something so simple takes him months because he sees no need to act expeditiously, as such an appointment doesn’t move the needle, for him. You may also ask why it took him so long to fire police commissioner Khehla Sitole? It was clear to those who lost family members in the July riots that the SA Police Service has no leadership. It has been clear to many ordinary South Africans whose pain is reported in numerical terms when crime statistics are released that the police have neither the plan nor will to end their suffering. To them, and Ramaphosa, they’re just a number. How many were killed? Raped? Robbed? 

How are we going to get our country out of junk status and start creating meaningful jobs that restore people’s dignity? When are we going to deal with the racism that afflicts our society, manifesting regularly at schools? The challenges are too many to list.

Just when South Africans thought their president was occupied with these and other pain points, they discover that he is out and about at auctions, selling cows to his wealthy brother-in-law. It’s not, per se, his participation in auctions that is a problem — it is what this participation represents: a disconnection with the sufferings of many. His inability to sympathise and attend with urgency to the challenges affecting many. He would have us believe he prioritised the “elimination of load-shedding” as soon as he became ANC president in 2017, appointing a new board then. Almost five years later, though, we are subjected to daily briefings about what is not working at Eskom, which impedes attempts to restart the economy. Shameful.

Our cry is simple: read the room, Mr President. This is not the time to be selling or buying expensive cows, unless the proceeds are used to help many who are struggling to make ends meet, many of whom could access justice if you fixed the judiciary, the police force (making our country safe), the economy (and thus creating jobs that restore people’s dignity). We can throw our hands in the air and exclaim: what’s there to be said? Well, not much. Just read the room, sir! Read the room.