We'll get rid of e-tolls......not really.

We'll get rid of e-tolls......not really

The happenings at the recently held Gauteng ANC elective congress have raised all sorts of opinions and excitement. President Jacob Zuma absence at the event has even fuelled notions that there may be a currently irreparable rift between the Gauteng and national ANC.

<Pic sourced: www.dailymaverick.co.za>

All stakeholders involved are exhibiting intrigue based on differing agendas. Whilst one group is salivating because of the perceived ructions within the ANC, another grouping is anxious as a direct result of these developments-however recent or long ago they are purported to have sprouted. 

The third horde however, is gleefully transfixed at these events as they constitute news, meaning more publication sales and ratings. There is an unspoken of  crop of people-who form the fourth group, or maybe I’m being presumptuous, instead of a multitude of people maybe I’m the only one who holds this view or sees this matter on this particular angle.

I, dear reader, feel that there are no ructions between the Walter Sisulu and Luthuli houses. In fact I would venture to say that all this is just a ploy- from the ruling party, to wrest back a proper stranglehold of Gauteng. This, for me smacks of the same often well-timed and strategically uttered vitriol and denigration that is spewed by COSATU’S very own comeback kid, Zwelinzima Vavi-I find it disingenuous that someone who can pin point and even say out loud repeatedly, the faults that are keeping in chains, South African labour and by default, the South African economy at large due to the maintaining of the exact complacent ineptitude that has led us into this pit to begin with, keeps steadfastly on in an alliance with the very same people perpetuating this ‘injustice’ he keeps pointing at.

Indeed I might even be tempted to supervise a fan page for the incumbent Numsa Secretary General, Irvin Jim. At least in all his protestations he has even endeavoured or at least threatened to sever ties with the COSATU and in automatically, the ruling party. That is a clear sign of disenchantment with an untenable relationship and a further visible resolve to solve the problem. I truly do not see that Paul Mashatile and co have the intent to carry out this perceived mutiny of theirs. I’m not arguing against the fact that there have been noticeable periods at which they and Zuma or the ANC at 

national level have not seen eye to eye, but am pointing at the fact that it ended then and there.

<Pic sourced: www.enca.com>

The current supposed disgruntlement they have against the electronic tolling system and its ramifications on the number of votes they won at the last elections is not a fight they are planning to take up and wage come hell or high waters. Like Premier Makhura’s E-toll commission, this is merely a folly meant to deceive the voters and make them believe that their interests are something actually worth fighting for with disregard for the career stifling consequences that may result in the wake of failure.

I’m sorry to disappoint people who fall under the first above-mentioned group. The ruling party is bereft of the rabble-rousing, fight for their convictions or the greater good ilk of leaders that championed the establishment of the Youth League or the move to racial integration within the party back in the tenuous 1940’s. All it now has is a bunch of individuals who toe the line and would rather whisper their disagreement in the shadows than putting them to the fore and daring to shore up support for them at all costs.

When then Gauteng premier, Ms Nomvula Mokonyane was quoted on this very publication’s online platform in 2012 she stated that “As the provincial government, we are conscious that a solution must be found that will balance the considerations of affordability, impact on public transport but also honouring our commitment to paying our dues,” There must have been some hope or a sense that she would honour her words. But as we know nothing happened. The affordability considerations she spoke of were never revised. In fact, the very reason this issue is still of high contention is exactly because of motorists viewing it as not being affordable. And who might I ask, was the provincial leader of the ANC at that time? It’s the very same newly re-elected Paul Mashatile.

<pic sourced: www.vivacommunications.co.au>

In isiZulu there is an idiom that says ‘Ithemba alibulali” loosely translated that means there is no harm in having hope. If citizens of Gauteng choose to extend themselves once again and believe that this whole noise being made by Gauteng ANC has even an ounce of sincerity, well to each his own I suppose.

Just know that post 2016 the gantries will still be up and tolling. And the noises of dissent, that have some thinking all that glistens is gold, will have quietened. In the same breath, at a certain prominent address on Sauer street downtown Johannesburg, life will be going on as if nothing ever happened.