Gayton McKenzie’s plan to bring Formula 1 back to South Africa might end in financial catastrophe, but it’s just the latest shiny nugget dug up by a man who seems to own his own political gold mine.
Call it the populist Midas touch. Maybe it’s just the gift of always falling upwards. Whatever if it, he’s got it in spades.
Consider, for example, if you and I had built our careers on publicly promising to turn Beaufort West into Dubai, then failed hilariously. We’d probably be out of work for a while, and very few people would take us seriously ever again. McKenzie became a cabinet minister.
Two weeks ago, likewise, McKenzie took to Twitter to publish the names of hundreds of artists who’d received a total of R57m in Covid relief funds.
It was a masterclass in eating your cake and having it, managing simultaneously to flirt with the implication that the artists listed had somehow benefited unfairly, while also showing how much his department cares about arts and culture in South Africa.
McKenzie will have been told, for example, that building an F1-ready track can (according to a paper published by the University of Michigan) set you back more than R4bn, with an extra R300m per year to maintain it.
Again, if you or I had done that, someone would have Googled “Covid relief fund for artists” and found a News24 article from September 2021, in which the department of sports, arts and culture reported that, of the R300m in relief funds allocated to it by the Treasury, R272m had “already been distributed to artists and organisations”.
At this point, you and I would have been asked some fairly important questions. First, was the amount of R272m actually distributed? If it was, why had we chosen to cherry-pick the recipients of just R57m? What happened to the other R215m? And, given that none of these questions were answered, how was any of this more than a half-baked, ham-fisted publicity stunt?
But you and I are not Gayton McKenzie, and once again, the whole thing ended in another puff of fairy dust and the consensus on Twitter that McKenzie had struck a blow for transparency.
Which brings us to F1, and McKenzie’s public statement that his term as minister “will be a failure” if he doesn’t bring the sport to South Africa.
In the same tweet he claimed that he had “set up meetings with relevant people already”, so I assume he’s been briefed about the staggering costs involved with hosting an F1 race.
He’ll have been told, for example, that building an F1-ready track can (according to a paper published by the University of Michigan) set you back more than R4bn, with an extra R300m per year to maintain it.
He’ll know about the fee payable to the owners of F1 for the privilege of hosting, anything between R270m and R900m.
He’ll know that the only revenue the host country makes is from ticket sales and tourism, and that not all hosts break even.
He'll also know that the prospect of all those billions of rand flying around are a magnet for the corrupt. He’ll have read about, or been told about, Singapore’s minister of transport, who, just this year, resigned after a bribery scandal involving a hotel tycoon who allegedly paid the minister about R2m to help Singapore secure its own Grand Prix. He’ll reflect that if F1 can corrupt Singapore, a country we’re always being told is a bastion of clean governance, then imagine the cesspool it might dig here.
Finally, he’ll know that money isn’t the only obstacle in his way. In 2022, after Vladimir Putin launched his colonial land-grab in Ukraine, F1 publicly cut all ties with Russia (well, almost all: some teams are still happy to have Russian sponsors). The organisation has only expressed doubts about South Africa's ability to handle the logistics of a race, but behind the scenes our cosy relationship with Putin is reportedly a major stumbling block.
But there’s something else McKenzie will know — something more important and valuable than all the rest combined. He will know that if he fails to secure South Africa an F1 race, or if he somehow succeeds and it doesn’t make a profit, none of it will be his fault.
If he fails, he can shrug and say he was held back by the tight-fisted Treasury and the ANC’s Russia policy. If he succeeds but the tourist dollars don’t roll in, he can express regret that the ANC’s police minister, Senzo Mchunu, clearly hasn’t done enough to reassure foreign visitors, or that GOOD’s tourism minister, Patricia De Lille, didn’t get her ducks in a row.
Yes, Gayton has struck gold with this one. Promise Monaco and Silverstone, and when it turns out to be Beaufort West, tell the voters you share their sadness, but you tried your best.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.