Social and Political Obligation

When driving down the freeway and you see someone with a car problem, do you stop and find out how you can help or do you just continue with you journey and ignore? While growing up one would give someone a lift but this has changed that attitude as one can no longer have a trust to give a stranger a lift these days because of crime and the moral decay that has infested us as a nation. My brother gave a couple a lift the other day his cell-phone and wallet were lost after he stopped at the garage for petrol refill and he does not give a lift to anyone after that experience. Would you blame him, would you justify his attitude towards hikers? Another question will be, when you pass that person with a car problem, do you also pass him /her and think that he /she must have a roadside assistance, they will have to come or do you stop and find out what the problem is? In some cases you will find that the person does not have a phone with him /her (because of a flat cell-phone battery case or something like that) and only needs to make a call for some help, but in other cases it might be that you have exposed yourself to a crime you never thought about. Nowadays you must think twice before you can stop and help anyone irrespective of gender, my mentor and commissar related a story of giving someone a lift the other day when he was told that the kind of music he plays was boring and that they must play the CD that the stranger brought along and changing it without even getting some approval from the person who has given him a lift. What would you do if you were in this position? These are some of the questions that has inspired in the writing of this chapter that tries to look at the social, moral and political obligation of those elected in leadership positions. It tries to look at the question where do we go from here as South Africans in building the kind of democracy that was envisaged by our fore bearers? It tries to look at what would you do if you were in that driving position and also consider what would you do if you were that hiker seeking a lift from point A to point B.  

These are some but a few cases that you must think of before giving someone a lift or stopping and assisting someone in trouble for the sake of the values that you believe in, ubuntu /botho principles. Your decisions will depend on your past experience and no one has to judge you for what you decide to do, we have thought of this when thinking of the public servants and civil servants that are elected or employed by government to help citizens. Are they doing you a favor by doing what they employed to do when they serve you just like the person who gives someone a lift on the road? We are of the opinion that, people must always perform their duties when citizens or anyone for that matter come to their space or where they work, they should help those seeking help. In Home Affairs for example, if one visit that office for application of an ID book, you must comply with their modus operandi and comply in taking finger prints, completing an application form and paying of the fees that must be paid, you’re not obliged to buy any cold drink for that official since he /she is getting paid for doing that job by the department. One has to look at the moral obligation, social obligation and political obligation that should be inculcated to everyone employed to serve. If this attitude continues, we might as a nation end like Nigeria, DRC, Zimbabwe or any country in Africa for example where corruption seems to be the order of the day where citizens are forced to pay for what is rightfully theirs. But how will this be practical if those elected have signed an oath and pledged in front of everyone that they will serve the nation instead of serving their own personal agendas, but what happens after they are elected they develop symptoms of greed, corruption and selfishness as it has been the case since ANC took office from the Apartheid regime. What went wrong, one will keep on asking as our history of the past 20 years does not justify why has the ANC led government failed the nation in uniting people, creating job opportunities, building houses for citizens, fighting poverty and have been part of the ANC led program. Every administration came with the mentality of “its our time to eat”, this then has became a paten by those entrusted with leading the nation in the creation of a better life for all, but they seem to do the opposite, look at what happened in Lenasia for example, look at the rate unemployment has escalated since the ANC led government took over reins from the National Party regime, look at the poor quality of houses that this government has build since it took office. In the research conducted, we have noted that during the National Party regime, jobs were looking for people and that even though most blacks were oppressed by the regime, people were secured of job opportunities and some were even recruited from neighboring SADC countries, but the situation has changed since the ANC led government took over. We have black people living from dustbins because they are called unemployable by this current government, with the Constitution that aims at ensuring that human rights abuse are fought at all levels, but then, the question is what happens when these human rights abuses are done by the elected government and that when it supposes to account and report on the progress achieved and challenges met, our servants tend to turn a blind eye and blame media for attacking the progress achieved since 1994. The government with principles of building houses and creating a better life for all has now demolished houses of people who have worked hard in building since they have seen that government is taking long to deliver the mandate of service delivery, in this case, building houses for all. They were victims of a scam led by some government official representing the same government that has decided to demolish those houses, one of the questions we have been asking during this time was whether this act should be referred as arson, but then, what is arson if it is committed by government?  The question is when observing this situation, should we use a blanket approach for all of those elected? The fact is that we can use a tool called “through the eye of the needle” that came with the ANC (early in the 70s) when electing its leadership and has been abandoned since greed and corruption took over. The question then is, is there any progress report regarding departments on their performance, and does the executive capable of submitting reports on their performances since they took over from the previous administration? It is clear that the ANC led government has not managed to unite South Africans in that it promotes the creation of too many unnecessary political parties so that it is not held accountable by the electorate and tries to justify the notion of democracy that we see today. If those who were part of the liberation struggle are sidelined and have not been included in the program of government, whites who have benefitted or did not benefit during the apartheid regime have not been included as well, how then will nation building work if the government does not look at serving the interest of its citizens and the electorate?

                                  

The experience with Forest High School the other day (during the Freedom Month) has taught us a thing or two, in that not all personnel are the same, there are those who are willing to help and one cannot just use a blanket approach. In the series of the articles wrote during the Freedom month, we have been trying to understand whether the freedom gain in 1994 should be celebrated by the nation or does it have a significance that all South Africans should celebrate, as we have managed to have a government that is elected by the majority of people, does this freedom serve the interests of all members of our society? The picture is that we see during these national events organize by government as they just end up as some function or party of the ANC members and sympathizers, we do not see the representation of the rainbow nation envisaged by Bishop Tutu. During this exercise, we became affected directly on this research topic and have concluded that we see no reason as to why we’re going to celebrate freedom if we still have officials employed to serve the nation but do not realize their responsibilities as to why as South Africans we have to change our attitudes towards each other. Although you will realize that our research focus was mostly directed at government Ministers who have not manage to understand that as servants, they are elected at ensuring that government policies and legislations are implemented within their departments. Some of the concerns that we raised were based on why the ANC cabinet should also understand that it is their Ministers and behaviors that will influence the decision of the electorate come the Election Day, 2014. People will judge the current administration on the good things and bad things that they have done during their term of office. It will not be programs that have been part of the ANC’s RDP policies that have been delayed by those charged upon with these responsibilities and were sometimes diverted from the main objective of creating a better life for all. The medication for a black person seem to be a white person as it seem that there those who would object and defy orders leading to the delay of mandates by all three ANC administrations. The question then becomes as to what would happen if ANC would be relieved from leading the nation and that a new political system would take over the reins and allow ANC to become the opposition? Will this help us as a nation in building the nation that has to be a rainbow nation if most of these opposition parties would merge and form a patriotic front movement that will serve the interest of all South Africans? Some of the questions that we have asked include, what would happen if five of the Provincial governments would fall in that Patriotic Movement and that the ANC is left with only four Provinces to govern? These seem to be unrealistic in that ANC has managed to have the political monopoly over the political system thus we will continue having new political parties born with not positive impact on the political system of South Africa that can embrace the democratic values that has to be enjoyed by all citizens. Personal or individual fulfillment seem to dominate our political system and that opposition parties are unable to sit down and focus on challenging elections in partnerships since they are also infested by internal differences instead of looking at forging partnerships. South African politics seem to be dominated by materialistic and greedy individuals who have no interest in building a better South Africa that will unite all South Africans irrespective of their social, cultural or political backgrounds. This then also shows that there is an opportunity for a platform that will unite all South Africans for one common goal of building the nation that will put civil servants first, bringing back the values that worked during the oppression years especially on the creation of employment opportunities that will allow people to become participants in the economy of this country.

The concerns raised during the Freedom month were based on the fact that, our democracy was created with the foundation that cadres elected should be the drivers of ensuring that people are given an opportunity of living a better life, but what have we seen? These elected leaders end up with some kind of “entitlement notion” that they justify as some kind of “it’s our time to eat” and now the question is what should people do? If politicians have some kind of relationship with those in business as cautioned by Nyerere in Tanzania, we will have a situation of going around in circles without anyone taking responsibility or accounting to the other and this develops to some “cargo-cult” mentality as detailed by Chinua Achebe’s ‘Troubles with Nigeria’s book’. Achebe portrays a picture of politicians who keeps on promising citizens of a better life for all every time there are elections and people will keep on voting them to power with the hope that things will improve and that these politicians will develop some conscious and start serving the mandates at hand, but what happens, corruption keeps on going on and on until we see what is happening in Nigeria today for example. When looking at the number of people who have managed to become millionaires without any background of hard work except political connections, we will continue having a Marikana scenario where businessmen /politicians managed to give orders for the killing of 34 miners in that area and that nothing seem to be morally wrong as it is see even today. In Tanzania for example, Nyerere might have been blessed with a vision and that has managed to create a foundation for that country and corruption was not part of the plan, what is the plan in South Africa? When you look at the Nkandla gate /Zumaville homestead upgrade, one can see that this administration has failed the poor people of Inkandla because a budget that was envisaged to be used to build a mall or factories in that area was used to upgrade the house leased by the Zuma family aimed at serving their own family. The homestead has a clinic, tuck-shop, sports ground and facilities that taxpayers will foot the bill for, then the report will be secret and citizens are not supposed to know what went on. If that fund was used to build factories, a number of families in Nkandla could have benefited and employment opportunities could have been created for that community, but what do we have instead, those who will be working at the clinic will only be serving the Zuma clan residing in that homestead and people will be footing the bill. Question that needs to be asked by the Public Protector needs to include as to how will the community access the homestead and use these facilities (clinic, grounds, tuck-shop), but these are some of the concerns that our Legislatures needs to seek answers for when they discuss constitutional issues in Parliament. We have a Malema case for example that we know of after he was fired from the same ANC led administration that has managed to make him the kind of millionaire that they have charged them on corruption charges and forgetting as to how many people have benefitted out of the same system and are still ANC beneficiaries of this kind of practice.

After looking at the way things have been going on in the past few days (April 2013), one has realized that we are still facing a challenge of improving the education sector in our country. We have not managed to achieve what was projected by our predecessors in ensuring that we have a system that works for all especially since the call by one of the Alliance partners, SADTU’s call for the Minister of Education removal. We have not forgotten the positive contribution created by this department (did OBE work) but our concern still relies on the kind of quality of education that our children get from this department and have concluded that it has failed in that, from OBE system to the current system, our educators are still have some challenges on how the policy functions. In some African countries, we have an education system that is more advance than what we have despite the infrastructure, resources and structures that are there at our disposal but seen to be underutilized.  In other African countries for example in Sera-Leon, Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria and others, they have shown that young people are given early childhood development program aimed at nurturing and shaping their minds early in their development. They then become competitors in the global market and have shown talent and commitment in these competitions, our children’s education was lowered by this Minister and one wonders if this is intended of ensuring that our children are not competitors in the global village, while children of those Ministers, business community, relatives and friends of the elite are sent to the best schools (St Michael, St Andrews, Adams College and so on) with a 70% standard pass rate. If the standard of pass rate was increased to 60% instead of being lowered to 33%, we could be developing young minds that will be competitive in the global village. One also wonders as to when people will be consulted before some of these decisions are made before being forced down their throats, or is because ordinary poor people are taken as illiterate, third class citizens and that these Ministers should take the responsibility of taking these decisions without consulting their Constituencies. The education system needs some consideration as we come from western type system; we need to accept that as a nation we have to comply by the standards set by those countries following this system. It would be wise if government employs a system that has proved to work as in the case of military conscription of young people in that, if one aims to be a doctor for example but comes from a poor family, he /she can be able to achieve this dream if he /she is absorbed by government. This will also assist in ensuring that people develop patriotism and that government invests in human capacity instead of misusing public funds on building individual houses or buying unnecessary expensive cars that some of the ministers have been justifying in the past, and promoting a materialistic BEE lifestyle created by the ANC led government.

It should be the Monitoring and Evaluation Department that has to report back to us as the electorate in ensuring that there is transparency and accountability by institutions created to serve all of us, starting with number one. As the electorate we were promised that an audit report would be published as to the qualifications and competency of our civil servants some years ago, but we have not been offered that report. We have accepted that we must continue having unqualified individuals in key positions that are cheque collectors who are running these departments and have contributed in the delay of services to our communities. If both Departments of Education were practical in the implantation of policies and strategies, we would be having a much better capacitated government official who would know what his/her responsibilities are. But it seems that we have people who are busy planning the future of South Africans without any practical solutions and realities that can been seen by ordinary citizens, we have had three administrations since the ANC took office in 1994, they have all been planning with no policies that seen to have succeeded, do we now think that NDP will be different from RDP, GEAR or ASGISA? In one of the policy conference attended sometime ago, it was recommended that we revisit RDP and muster the policy before we can move on into other policies as people might get confused as to why the promises are not delivered by those elected. If this route was taken don’t you think we could have mustered RDP by now and we could not be facing the challenges that we face in addressing the housing backlog? Strategies of delivering the housing issue could have been improved by now and we could be looking at how then we could be addressing other issues raised in the Gear policy document. It is time that the current ANC led government accepts and take responsibility that it has failed to address service delivery issues since 1994 and has delegated some of the tasks to those who have outsourced work that was part of government to individuals such as security services, maintenance of roads, cleaning services instead of employing people on a permanent position. The delay by government to propose new policies taken as Election Manifestoes (NDP) by parties to promise people things that will be delivered after 30 to 50 years to come will not work, we therefore advise the electorate to support a party that has a five year service delivery policy document that will be clear for everyone, should it fail to deliver the promises in 6 months for example, those elected should be recalled or voted out (by vote of no confidence) and must not wait for five years in order for them to show failure in delivery of services to our nation. In one of the articles written, we mentioned that Plato was of the opinion that those elected (the executive or cabinet in this case) should not have any relations with their communities, they should not have a direct relations with their communities since they are only employed to look at serving the interest of ordinary citizens, they should be accommodated in compounds that has not linkages to their communities. This system can assist government in delivering mandates given by people as the only focus will look at the mandate at hand, it has not been tested but this seems to be ideal since those who will be serving will not know as to who are benefiting on programs aimed at the development of their communities. When looking at the Nyerere administration when it took over, it was clear that no one was supposed to have any relations with business while serving in that government. Don’t you think that corruption, greed can be eradicated if we follow that route, people will only focus in what they are elected for, delivery of services and these Parliamentarians will not be distracted by what we see in all the three administrations that took over from the Apartheid regime?

Role of government and apartheid: It has been 19 years since our government took over from the apartheid system; you would not expect to be having officials that behaves the way that they have with the background that we come from. If cadres of the ANC who have managed to muster policy documents written by ANC such as “Ready to govern”, it would be having people who are aware of corruption practices that was seen in other parts of Africa and would have been serving the nation and to work against the corruption that is seen by everyone except those in the ANC leadership circles. When the ANC took over from the Apartheid regime, it had a high moral ground in convincing people to vote for it as a party in 1994, and it was seen to be in a better position to manage to convince the two thirds majority of the electorate to vote for them. 19 years later we ask if the ANC still has that high moral ground it had, it had an opportunity again in 1999 to review the Constitution but failed to do so. In this research on the morality of this nation, I have gone 30 years ago and have realized that as a nation we have lost the morals that we once had as a nation. Some of my critics might argue that at the time, South Africa was predominantly a monotheist religious based country; we had Christianity led government that was a foundation of all families moral values, communities and the nation at large. In schools, we had assemblies in the morning praying and seeking guidance and protection from GOD, but this was changed in that, schools were informed to stop this practice. Schools only meet once a week at these assemblies and children are not guided on the morality or values that were once there and have assisted in shaping our understanding to societal ills that we face today. The Apartheid regime also used Christianity to justify its unjust policy of apartheid and managed to indoctrinate everyone by this system as it introduced the Bantu Education aimed at the development of Blacks. We also had other religions that were practiced in other communities such as Islamic and Judaism although they were seen as a threat to that government. But as we moved on we managed to tolerate each other and managed to establish networks that managed to fight the apartheid regime together.

Little did we know that when ANC took over, we would experience challenges that we see today, practices of rape against children, women and men; moral decay of the youth especially at our schools; poor education standard that has created unemployables of healthy citizens; poverty experienced by those living under squalor conditions as seen in informal settlements; unemployment of citizens including the youth who could be absorbed by military conscription; violent crime that is exposed to ordinary citizens; teenage pregnancy; drug and alcohol abuse experienced by those who are managing the lockshin /township gospel; introduction of Satanism in communities and those moral and social ills we see everyday in our communities. Some of these challenges were not in this advance stage that we see today in that jobs were looking for people, citizens who were unemployed for example were imprisoned and later forced to work in farms or mines, but today we have healthy people who cannot find employment because of red tape that was introduced by this current government. Although we have a Moral Regeneration Forum that came with this government aimed at addressing the social ills that we face today, it (this Forum) happens to be toothless bulldog that keeps on barking when moral issues are raised by concerned members of our society when we have rapes, teenage pregnancies, and other moral challenges that we face as a nation. We only see talk shows, workshops, seminars or conference funded by government with wasteful expenditure without any constructive or positive outcomes from these exercises. Thus we are appealing that we cannot be planning for 19 years in government without any proper action or delivery to services that should be created for ordinary citizens and when you sit down and take stalk, you realize that we are at the very same point that we started at (in 1994), square one, the question then is, will NDP come with a different approach from those policy documents that we had before? Politicians will keep on promising citizens better life for all but only those in the upper echelons benefit from these programs and only a few of them will be genuine in their promises, and they are clouded by those who are corrupt and greedy. Only change will ensure that these promises become a practical reality, then who can save us from this disaster that we have become victims of? It is all of us, the electorate that can save all of us from this mess, how? Is another question that needs our attention, we can either have an administration that will acknowledge and accept responsibility to these challenges and then revive the spirit of patriotism in that we have all political parties sitting down in one roof and accepting that we need a way forward that will aim at building the nation. We are a society that is diverse with different social, cultural and moral backgrounds that needs to have synergies in building on the foundation created by our forebears in building a true non-racial society that is suppose to be seen by all. We must acknowledge that we still have some form of apartheid in reverse where those in the majority, blacks in particular in the form of ANC led government practicing discrimination to fellow blacks (especially those from other political parties such as AZAPO, PAC, BCM, UDM and others), whites, coloreds and indians by means of red tape to access government resources in business, employment, and opportunities that citizens have to benefit from. We have now seen some foreign nationals benefiting from these resources instead of fellow citizens and this government tends to ignore even though there are signs of xenophobic attacks in mostly black townships. If we keep on ignoring these facts, we might face these attacks escalating to other parts of societies and might have a situation of destruction of the same foundation that was created after the apartheid system was destroyed. Structures (created) that are there in ensuring that there is accountability are those in the Chapter 9 Institutions, Political Parties, NGOs, and local Ward Committees. Are they functional? Do they understand their role in ensuring that our democratic system functions well? When you look at the local level/ government, you have Ward Committees that are not having enough capacity to understand their responsibilities. Thus we are not convinced with the level of reporting from those structures assigned to do checks and balances on the government operations except for the Auditor General report that has managed to portray a picture of our government departments. NGOs as direct structures in these communities are not fully supported by government, foreign donors and business and have led them to loose focus and interest in that we cannot have people volunteering for life on empty stomachs. You will only see this when there is a National event (i.e. Freedom Day, Workers Day, Youth Day, Women’s Day, Heritage Day) only citizens who are predominantly ANC supporters will be attending these events and media coverage will portray a picture that our nation is not united in diversity as written on paper, where are white South Africans, where are fellow black or indian South Africans in these events. These challenges have painted a picture of what South Africa looks like during these events or are they only ANC events? If so, we are still facing a challenge of uniting all South Africans and this is the responsibility of those in government structures to lead us as a nation.

You would not be having a government that is not willing to listen to its citizens who have voted it into power. Media is seen as a tool used by the opposition to attack the government even though one can see that it raises critical issues of concern that everyone needs answers of, take the Gupta and Guptee case, does government mean that citizens were not allowed to know of the situation?. The electoral system also needs some transformation as it also poses challenges that I have raised in other articles about the accountability of government. Do we need a system of voting an individual or a party as it is the case? Government Ministers are supposed to report back to their constituencies on their work but in contrast, ordinary citizens end up reporting to them in favor of receiving government tenders and deals. The Public Protector seem to be under capacitated as it only operational at their National Office and seem to be commanded as to which cases it can look at, it takes a while to complete cases that are of key Political figures. With these few examples, you will notice that the fight for the justice has to continue and comes back as a class struggle since we have a system led by those who come from the working class but are now sitting with the business communities in that, they represent workers but also have shares in the very same sector they represent workers on, we also have those who are seen to be representing workers but are spokesperson of government. We have some confusion in our class struggle, we have challenges of political obligation in that we have so many political parties that have internal squabbles and seem not to represent their constituencies but ambitious individuals that are fighting each other. As we speak, we have no strong political party that can challenge the ANC in the pools, come 2014 in that most of them seem to be facing challenges of lifetime presidents, internal fights for power, weak political programs and so forth with the DA standing as the only intact opposition that is also seen to be a white led party that will bring back apartheid to our society. The born-frees have mostly supported this party (DA) in that they will tell you that they do not know what is apartheid. We also have you FF led by pro boere white farmers who also serve the interest of the minority whites with their own belief and morals. As a nation we do not need so many political parties in showing that our democracy is the best compared to other countries, I am still of the opinion that only four political parties could serve the nation since the objective in them is of creating a better life for ordinary citizens. If some of these parties can merge and focus on building back our morals (practical Social Cohesion /Moral Revival), economic emancipation, review of the Constitution, review our Electoral System and all those concerns that can work for a Paterfamilias and all South Africans.

These are some of the issues that can be looked at for example: - You would not be having greed government ministers and their officials promoting to live the way they do,

• promoting to buy expensive cars, every time our minister of finance making his speech, you will find ministers moving for an option of buying new expensive cars for both their Cape Town and Pretoria residence. There is a government garage where government cars (g-fleet) is responsible for ensuring that our ministers must have access to transport with VIP protection in case they visit 
• improving and renovating government residential houses, instead the budget can be used to build houses for ordinary citizens who have are still living under squalor conditions in these informal settlements and treated as third class citizens
• promoting outsourcing responsibilities that could create job opportunities for ordinary unemployed citizens and giving tenders to companies owned by foreign nationals. We need a review on this, and bring back the system that used to work in the past of military conscription (even if young people will not be forced to join) where young people can be employed in these departments such as stopping outsourcing security, cleaning, maintaining services and employing people for these posts;
• demolishing houses of people instead of building houses as tabled in the ANC election manifesto since 2004,  
• not able to maintain the infrastructures that have been there and should be improved by those administrators, looking at why TPA was scraped without an alternative to this system;

Preferential treatment of those connected to the President of the country such as the Gupta family and the landing of a plane to our military base airport, is our security not at risk? What is the national interest in this wedding that government will benefit from their use of Military Base? Marikana case showing that there is a problem in the management of SAPS as failure of commander in the operations:- contradiction statements between the National commissioner, R Phiyega and the Commander in chief of operations in the commission of enquiry shows that there might be a problem in our SAPS. Some of the reports have also revealed that we have police officers who have criminal records but are employed by this department. Why should we blame them when they take bribes and collude with drug dealers in our communities? Why do we have to complain on drug dealing when the Minister of National Intelligence’s wife is in jail serving a sentence on drug dealing charges? Example of failure and incompetence of those tasked to lead government departments and government institutions such as Express SA, SABC, SAA, PetroSA –“is as if we have employed people who do not know accounting, correcting a correction in a classroom”

Mandate of youth structures

ANCYL and ANC that has led our young people to loose hope in the struggle for economic emancipation, how will this task team be able to bring back the aspiration and confidence that has been there since the time of Lembede, what is their mandate today? Who is setting an agenda for them? The ANC cannot be in a position that will make young people to accept an agenda that will please the ANC leadership all the time, but this structure was created for this purpose, so how will they focus in shaping the challenges faced by young people if they are a structure aimed at serving the needs of the elite class that does not serve the interest of the freedom charter. Leadership that does not set an example on improving the lives of our people, the standard of education that was lowered to 33% pass rate – how those students will be of value to a system that needs competent people who must strive for excellence in the fields of mathematics and physical science or their field of study.

The way we have a high rate on Crime issues you would think that we have some malfunction in our SAPS department. In my research that I have conducted on this issue, I have realized that our police no longer make road blocks to look for stolen cars; and other routine checks that we used to see, but now the focus has shifted to search for people who drink and drive. SAPS cars are mostly repaired by backyard garages that mostly employ foreigners instead of using the old system of using government garage that used to service government pool cars. If our government can revive the old system it would create more job opportunities for some unemployed South Africans who could work in these garages instead of promoting outsourcing work that must be created for fellow citizens. Some of the concerns raised by SAPS members were of the question that they are loosing confidence in our leadership because they are no longer treated as civil servants and are under paid, which is a genuine concern. If those politicians will only focus on enriching themselves and think that they will have policemen used as a tool that will protect them, people have feelings and will also run out of fuel and confidence thus one can justify them when making money on the other side. But if we have a leadership that has invested in these civil servants, confidence will be restored and they might revive their patriotic spirit since now we have more criminals in police uniform than before.

Poverty and unemployment, Cadre deployment, Standard of life that is getting too high, Social ills that we face as a nation on a daily basis, Social Cohesion and moral regeneration,  are some but few challenges that when we move towards 2014 NPE the electorate needs to consider when making that mark. Ministers must account to communities: When we conducted a research to some Wards as to why they cannot come and report back on their portfolios to the public, we have found that in most of the time our ministers are called to come and give back these reports but would find an excuse of that they are busy on national issues. So the question still remains as to why we must elect people who will later get out of touch to their constituencies, did these leaders not learn what happen to Thabo Mbeki? He was recalled because ANC people felt that he was too aloof and out of touch to those who elected him. Where are the spokespersons for department if most of the time it is ministers who will appear on TV defending a position of a department instead of focusing on strategizing on policy and legislative implementation.

While busy reading, Chinua Achebe’s “The trouble with Nigeria” we became disturbed by the news of a Gupta plane landing in our military base, and could not stop thinking about Achebe’s “Things fall apart”, it has became clear to us that the centre cannot hold in our government departments and can still justify why we have not celebrated Freedom Day. The echo in my mind was “ngiyaniteta, manje seningi milela amaphiko, yimi ophethe manje” it will be your duty to translate that as we are of the view that everyone must at least know some of the official languages. Almost everyday there is some news that reflects bad decision making by our government administration as it is the case, in one of the articles we have stated that we have gone 17 years back as a nation and it is going to take us some time if our government will keep on making these unpopular decisions as is the case with the Gupta plane. We cannot claim that it is the media, DA or opposition parties behind the fall of the ANC’s confidence to the electorate; it is actions such as these that will take time to fade away from people’s minds when they will be called to cast their votes, come 2014 NPE. Our leadership is failing us as a nation and we must also take the responsibility since we have elected them to power, the question that the nation would like to know is when will that time come? You may say people are disgruntled about the party they have thought will always have a space in the heart and blood, people were also disappointed at the leadership that was elected in Mangaung. One may speculate as to what is happening in the NEC meetings if we have a government that cannot answer to concerns raised by ordinary citizens if we have no united position within the Alliance Partners and have no one taking responsibility of an act that has happened, why must people rehearse on a speech in answering on CAR or a plane landing at our military base. Power changing hands these days is led by technology, such as facebook, twitter and youtube as we have seen in the Arab countries.