I have not written anything on my website since September 2024. Call it writer’s block or a sense of disillusionment with the world that I see around me but I have lacked inspiration despite the many issues that have crossed my path.
Conflicts abound across the globe some becoming newsworthy for a while only to be superseded by others in the relentless news cycles that occupy the news channels of the world media. Images of displaced people as a result of various conflicts or natural disasters fill our television screens. The poor remain poor across the world with even basic services to communities crumbling in many places. But amongst all of this politicians joust for position many seemingly without real consideration and empathy for those that they are elected to govern. The disconnect between reality and political pronouncements remain stark when the every day daily struggle of many to survive is so far removed from the corridors of power and privilege.
Recently on a late Friday night domestic flight returning home from an all-day meeting I experienced at first hand this disregard for others by those blessed with power and privilege. A black German luxury SUV bearing a government logo drew up on the tarmac next to the plane which a full bus of passengers, myself included, were about to board. The occupants of the vehicle, without any visible haste, exited the vehicle. Laughing amongst one another, they extracted their hand luggage from the SUV and sauntered up the boarding stairs. All the while a bus load of paying passengers were left standing in the bus unable to board until they had done so. Some may regard this as a petty example but to the passengers who filled that bus at the end of a long day it was an irritation compounded by the fact that when the plane landed at our destination, well after 10 pm, the same people blocked the airbridge unconcerned about other passengers while they retrieved their own hand luggage. On my drive home from the airport I reflected on whether these “privileged” individuals had even realised the unfortunate image of arrogant disregard for their fellow citizens that they had left. Contrast this with a brief video I saw recently of the late President Jimmy Carter, already an old man, boarding a plane in the US shaking the hands of already seated passengers on his way to taking his seat in economy class accompanied by a single body guard.
Recently a photograph appeared on the South African Presidential social media X account taken at a Cabinet Strategic Planning meeting. The photograph depicted a room filled by the members of the national cabinet of the Government of National Unity (GNU). The number of people in that room was striking. The South African cabinet consists of 34 ministers and in addition 40 deputy ministers (the latter are not formally members of the cabinet but have all the official privileges). Each of the 74 ministers and deputy ministers have office staff (12 for a minister and 9 for a deputy minister plus additional departmental support staff for both), security (VIP drivers and protectors), transport (official and hired motor vehicles) while receiving travel, subsistence and other generous benefits as set out in the Ministerial Handbook1. In addition, there are a multitude of political office bearers in provincial and local government structures whose benefits are also outlined in the handbook. All of this paid for by the tax payer through either direct personal, company or 14% Value Added Tax (VAT). Juxtapose this profligacy against a national unemployment rate in South Africa of 32%2 while there are burgeoning informal settlements surrounding every city and town in the country.
When challenged on the size and cost of the national cabinet the President responded that this was as a result of having to accommodate the various parties that now make up the GNU, the logic of which I must admit escapes me. South Africa has one of the largest cabinets in the world much larger than many countries with both a larger population and more relevant financially, larger economies. Could it be that the size of the cabinet was necessary to ensure that enough of the “privileged political leadership cadre” could benefit from the privileges of that office? A country must have political leadership but at what cost to the citizenry?
Recent events have emphasised that personal wealth goes hand in hand with power and privilege. A stark reminder of this was a picture of three of the richest men in the world sitting together in Washington at the inauguration of the American President. Some time ago I was “window shopping” at the Mclaren dealership located at the Cape Town Waterfront admiring a beautiful example of automotive engineering that I could never hope to afford. I enquired from a staff member how many such vehicles were sold and was incredulous to learn that several were sold monthly across the country. I have an almost 15 year old BMW sedan and during its annual service at the local dealership I found that it would be difficult to acquire a new model for under six figures. Certainly there are in South Africa, despite high employment and many living in grinding poverty, others who ostensibly can afford extravagant luxuries.
In South Africa some in positions of power and privilege have found the lure of wealth and privilege an irresistible force. I have opined on many occasions in the past on this website on the impact of fraud and corruption on South African society, but the recent experience of the behaviour of those occupying that SUV at the airport gives a clue to the attitude of entitlement that grows once people achieve positions of power and influence. It seems that it is then too easy a path for some to assume that they are entitled use that position for personal gain.
South Africa needs a moral and ethical reset. The country needs are leaders who eschew the trappings of power and privilege. Leaders who do not set themselves apart from the citizenry they govern. Leaders who set an example by the way they live and act. When they travel should they not experience what ordinary people experience and not be set apart by VIP lounges, use the most economic form of travel without a coterie of security and expensive vehicles? Does even the President need to travel in a convoy of expensive German luxury vehicles? The optics would be very different if he were to set an example by in future utilising only a mid range sedan as his official vehicle and reducing the size of his security entourage. Why could the country not be effectively governed by a national cabinet to 15 ministers and 15 deputy ministers with a Ministerial Handbook amended to remove all but the most essential items? While this alone would not solve the multitude of challenges facing this country, the symbolism may make the citizenry begin to believe that government was working for them and not for the benefit of those who lead.
