The mayor of Mopani district municipality in Limpopo is promising jobs in exchange for votes for the ANC.
"Comrades, you must vote for the people you know so that when there are job opportunities, we can offer you those because you voted for us," she is reported to have told branch members in the region.
She might be a little unsophisticated and blunt about it, but if you read her party's manifesto, that is precisely what it is promising, too: jobs for votes.
What the ANC and its mayor are not telling us, however, is where those jobs are going to come from.
"More Jobs, More Decent Jobs" - that is the first item on the election manifesto the governing party released at its birthday celebrations in Durban last week. It has already set itself the impossible target of increasing employment from 16-million to 24-million by 2030. In its manifesto, the ANC promises to create 275,000 jobs each year "by boosting local demand for goods, investing more in mining, manufacturing and agriculture, and expanding export markets".
It promises to not only create new jobs, but "work hard to protect existing jobs". But how will it do this when the economy sheds thousands of jobs each month? The party aims to target investments in mining and manufacturing to boost job creation. How, when global demand for commodities is so low and the mining sector is bleeding jobs?
Increased investment in manufacturing is a fantastic idea when there is global demand for manufactured goods, but is there? The Trump administration is using protectionist measures to block access to US markets for developing nations and China. The huge imbalance of trade with the Chinese means we buy a lot more from them than we sell to them.
The ANC boasts that the implementation of the national minimum wage of R20 an hour will improve the lives of 6-million workers, including the most vulnerable such as farm labourers and domestic workers. But there is already a loophole that allows certain companies to opt out of paying the minimum wage if they are able to prove they cannot afford it. Also, who is going to monitor implementation? The department of labour? Good luck.
There are other notable promises that have been carried from one manifesto to another, only to fail at the point of implementation. For example, on innovation, digital and data revolution, the party vows to "reduce the cost of data through the work of the competition authorities and the communication regulator, Icasa".
The government controls the radio frequency spectrum that is required by mobile operators to make data cheaper. Late last year the department of telecommunications hauled Icasa to court to stop it issuing spectrum licences to interested bidders. Yes, a government department took a government agency to court to stop it from embarking on the process of making data cheaper.
The ANC is confident that amending section 25 of the constitution, allowing for expropriation of land without compensation, will speed up the land reform programme. But even if the rate of redistribution is doubled, black beneficiaries will continue to struggle without support from the government. From securing capital to accessing markets, the ANC government has continuously failed land reform beneficiaries.
"We will develop greater support for emerging and small-scale farmers," the party pledges. Interesting. How it will whip its lethargic bureaucracy into shape does not come out clearly in the manifesto.
On fixing basic education, the party that has presided over a system that produces unskilled and unemployable youths is rather vague. It promises to "amend relevant legislation and policies to enforce accountability and consequence management", appoint qualified teachers and "amend the curriculum to provide necessary resources to prepare pupils for the fourth industrial revolution".
Amending legislation to enforce consequence management in schools is a great idea, but how are they planning to get their alliance partner, teachers' union Sadtu, to support this? It has stubbornly resisted all attempts at holding its members accountable.
The biggest chunk of the more than R200bn basic education budget goes to provinces, which use up 80% for salaries and personnel costs. Wealthy provinces such as Gauteng and the Western Cape can afford tablets and electronic teaching boards, but poorer provinces are still battling to eradicate mud schools and pit latrines.
The ANC promises that all South Africans will be covered by National Health Insurance (NHI) by 2025. It is now more than 12 years since it mooted NHI, but we remain in the dark over how it's supposed to function. Besides, a functional NHI scheme cannot take off in a country with a dysfunctional public health system. Where will they find money to fix the hospitals and the clinics, to recruit and train health-care providers?
Sadly, the manifesto is silent on this score.
When it comes to public transport, the ANC is again not short on lofty promises. It plans to invest in rail infrastructure, making it the backbone of our public transport system. It also wants to move freight from road to rail. The problem with this wish, however, is that the rail system is run by Transnet, which has been looted into the ground. Its ageing infrastructure is crumbling after a chunk of the billions budgeted for new locomotives went into the pockets of the Guptas and their cronies.
On water and sanitation, the ANC - without shame - promises to eradicate the bucket system and pit latrines. Again. People still subjected to such indignity have been told by successive ANC governments that the bucket system will be eradicated. The party must come up with another lie if it wants their votes.
Other promises in the manifesto, including eradicating crime, strengthening the justice system, fighting corruption and fixing the state, are repeated almost verbatim with each election cycle. South Africans have heard these stories before.
What happens when the elections are over and the same leaders have been voted back into office is a different story. The ANC is incapable of implementing even a quarter of what is contained in its manifesto. Historical affinity and a misguided, ineffective opposition are what keep it in power.
Yes, the ANC has done a lot since 1994. Building infrastructure, electrifying homes, connecting people to clean water, ensuring near universal access to basic education. But these achievements are negated by a bloated and uncaring bureaucratic system, corruption, incompetence and indifference.
After the nightmare of the Zuma years, the ANC has to do a lot more than repeat empty promises...