Cape Town - President Cyril Ramaphosa continues to prove his critics right in failing to live up to the promises he made to South Africans, and calls for him to step aside are becoming more justified.
Until now, Ramaphosa has very little, if anything, to show that he is the president to take South Africans out of the misery they find themselves in.
Former president Thabo Mbeki’s comments bemoaning the Ramaphosa administration’s failures are just proof of the growing discontent over the president’s lack of urgency.
He has yet to honour the promise he made to Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to visit the Marikana families who lost their sons and husbands after Ramaphosa called for concomitant action to be taken against striking mine workers.
The Phala Phala farmgate scandal and his lack of transparency continue to be a dark cloud that may lead to the end of his career.
And judging by how he handles some of the most devastating crises, Ramaphosa is anything but the president he promised to be.
You would be forgiven for thinking that he is still dreaming about the smart cities and bullet trains he promised when he assumed the role of the country’s president.
And those calling for the “incompetent and useless” Police Minister Bheki Cele to step down may have to think of a different strategy, because our president is not bothered at all.
In his weekly newsletter, Ramaphosa blamed everything and anything under the sun, including the country’s fiscal crisis, several years of understaffing and state capture, as factors contributing to the high crime rate.
His failure to acknowledge that Cele is not the right man for the job is a slap in the face of South Africans who live in fear of criminals.
While acknowledging the “serious challenges facing policing in South Africa”, he believes that crime cannot be eradicated without a strong, capable, professional police force.
The worsening policing in the country is but one of many examples of the hallmarks of a failed state.
Perhaps the sooner and more urgently South Africans realise that the ANC and Ramaphosa are not the right people to lift us out of this dark hole, the better.
Cape Times