What state would South Africa be in today if Cyril Ramaphosa had succeeded Thabo Mbeki and not that delinquent from Nkandla who, as it stands, is still unpunished? I think it would be fair to say that our country would not parity the South Africa so close to the brink of collapse.
A reasonable argument can be made that while the nine years under former president Jacob Zuma were disastrous for South Africans and the economy, it is only now that we, along with the rest of the world, are facing perhaps the most trying of times, that the true damage he caused will be felt.
With the Covid lockdown came what a great number of people referred to as a reset of world economies, America and China excluded. Around the globe millions of jobs were lost, and governments had to suddenly dig deep into their pockets for stimulus cheques. Less fortune countries like ours, and many others on our continent and abroad, could do little save for haul out the begging bowl; undoubtedly an idiosyncrasy which we seem in no hurry to abandon.
Rather than critique a country by its ability to provide during the fruitful years when jobs are aplenty and foreign investment pours in, does it not make more sense to gauge a sovereign state’s strength by its resilience after a setback like Covid-19? Or added to that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, since it has affected in one way or another, almost every country on the planet.
Unlike many African countries consigned to fiscal ruin in the years succeeding despotism and dictatorship, and we need look no further than our northern-most border, a verisimilitude of optimistic cheeriness befell the nation in the years post Zuma. Sure, the rot within state owned enterprises had set in and the infamous Guptas had run off with half the country’s money, but the great redeemer in the form of Cyril Ramaphosa had come to save us. In him we had faith that through the Zondo Commission, leading hopefully to the mass exodus of all the Zuma scoundrels still embedded in the state, we would purge the country of the wickedness we’ve been infected with since 2007.
As it turns out, the Zuma years not only were used to ruin the economy but also to instil a network of criminals that would be an impedimenta on the justice system, even with the brightest of legal minds at work.
Still, we marched on.
In spite of your personal feelings toward President Ramaphosa, it must be noted that he, along with his administration, have worked tirelessly to put the country back on the path to prosperity. Unfortunately for him, and for us, the country finds itself in what future historians may look back on as the perfect storm. The effect of Covid-19 on our economy coupled with the ramifications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has created what seems a recipe that will send our precariously perched-on-a-cliff economy over the edge. Rising petrol prices in an economy where today there are more jobs than there will be tomorrow, doesn’t equate to prosperity.
There are many who will direct their scorn and anguish to President Ramaphosa, laying the blame squarely on his shoulders. I am not an ANC supporter. I have been and remain highly critical of the party, but to see the progress we have made in the last five years, one needs to look back to where we were five years earlier.
My opening paragraph asks of you to imagine the state of South Africa today had President Cyril Ramaphosa succeeded Mbeki and not that idiotic kleptomaniac from the Palace of Plunder, in Nkandla. A more stark contrast you would have a difficult time finding, of that I am sure. We would not be sitting with 34.5% unemployment in 2022. Nor would we have to consider selling a kidney to afford electricity. Almost certainly our sole power supplier would not have to threaten people making use of green energy with additional penalty costs. And we definitely wouldn’t have 33% electricity price increases just to keep the lights on.
What we are living through now must be thought of for what it truly is, and that is Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma’s legacy. The culmination of the Zuma years have lumped us with other dismal countries that ought to be spoken of in past tense. Our country is in its current state as a direct result of Jacob Zuma’s leadership, or lack thereof.
For other sovereign states that have gone through the same Covid pandemic and face similar skyward-bound fuel increases, it is in these moments that their countries are put to the test. And it is during these times that governments ought to reverse the popular maxim of “ask what you can do for your country” to “Ask what your country can do for you”, and thanks to Jacob Zuma, the answer is nothing.