BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI: Ramaphosa's new dawn is vaporising as government fails to take charge
'While people are getting poorer, angrier and more desperate, Zuma - the architect of this nightmare - is enjoying his retirement on full pay'
EXTRACT
The positive sentiments palpable a while ago were not so much the result of the dazzling rays of Ramaphosa's New Dawn; it was simply glee at seeing the back of Zuma. And now it's wearing off. While people are getting poorer, angrier and more desperate, Zuma - the architect of this nightmare - is enjoying his retirement on full pay. And what's more, Ramaphosa has decreed that the taxpayer will continue to foot Zuma's legal fees.
The old geezer is having a good time.
But what's even more concerning about the current state of affairs is that it doesn't seem like anybody's in charge. People break laws and burn things with abandon, and there's nary a word from the authorities.
It's just another day in sunny South Africa. If anything is said or done about it at all, it's always after the fact. There's a lack of decisiveness - and direction - about this Thuma Mina government.
We were lulled into believing that once Jacob Zuma, the great Satan, was gone, things could only get better. It would be morning in South Africa again. We spoke about the transition in almost hallucinatory terms, as though it was the second coming. Cyril Ramaphosa, he walked on water. He had the Midas touch. He was, one wag enthused, Mandela-esque. We even coined a word for it, Ramaphoria. And it sounded just about right. Well, the New Dawn, like a puff of smoke, has evaporated into nothingness. Things have got worse. And numbers don't lie. On the day Zuma resigned, for instance, the rand was sitting at R11.83 to the dollar. Today the currency is dancing between R13 and R14 to the greenback.And the ever-rising fuel price is beginning to induce a real sense of agitation and foreboding. The price of fuel is of course a function of our diminishing currency. But it's also because in the motorist, the government has found a docile and dependable cash cow. It has heaped tax after tax on e...
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