President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted editors in an ANC Black Wednesday Commemoration in Johannesburg on Monday.
I happened to be in Johannesburg, where IOL hosted two events in its highly successful series of Mayoral Candidates Town Hall Debates held across the country this week ahead of the November 4 Local Government Elections.
So I attended, fully expecting to be underwhelmed by the president's platitudes on the gender-based violence pandemic, failing municipal infrastructure and service delivery, and steep economic crises faced by South Africans.
Of course, being the commemoration of Black Wednesday, that darkest of assaults on media freedom by the apartheid government in 1977, he spoke about media freedom in South Africa—a constitutionally protected right—and how he didn't expect the media to pull any punches in its reportage.
"Today is a reminder of the bravery of journalists," he said, highlighting the critical role journalism played in the fight for our freedom, saying "we must never forget that history".
Freedom of the press is not a favour, it must be demanded, he said.
"We must welcome criticism," Ramaphosa told the editors gathered on the 45th floor of The Leonardo in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Ramaphosa's candour
But welcoming criticism and acting on it when it portends catastrophic failure are two different things.
I had an inkling of how my industry colleagues seated around me would report on the takeaways from Ramaphosa's address on Monday. He shared some anecdotes of how his interventions caused the immediate improvement in city cleanliness.
He shared how, on a recent trip to Mangaung, he found a dual carriageway lined with filth. He warned officials in charge that he would return a week hence and said he had better find it cleaned up. Ramaphosa was pleased to find WhatsApp messages days later showing yellow bulldozers clearing the muck.
Addressing the decay of downtown Joburg he shared how, after driving through the city's streets, he called Mayor Dada Morero in the lead up to the G20 Summit in November 2025 saying "if you value your job, start cleaning up".
This candour from Ramaphosa may impress some, and is nothing new. And reading the reports of my peers, it appears to have done the job. Ramaphosa acknowledged voter anger, the frustrations of South Africans let down by a lack of service delivery, the looming threat of the Agoa partnership failing, the skyrocketing fuel prices, even hinting at Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's Medium-Term Budget fuel tax relief...
But this doesn't impress me.
It is akin to a CEO of a manufacturing company, hearing and reading about complaints from customers using his products, doing nothing about it, and upon visiting the factory, realising the product is actually terrible. And only then springing into action to address the problem at that specific factory.
It's as if Ramaphosa is not aware that municipalities, and in particular those run by the ANC, are close to ruin.
Where the ANC governs
The event was hosted by the president of the ANC, indicated by the ANC regalia and branding visible throughout the venue. And thus, I have no issue honing in on municipalities run by the ANC, and for the purposes of this exercise, ignoring other failing municipalities.
Let's just look at the metros. Twelve women's bodies discovered in Ekurhuleni municipality, led by ANC mayor Doctor Xhakaza. I drove through Makausi, Germiston, en route to our Mayoral Candidates Town Hall Debate, held at the Joburg Theatre on Monday morning. My driver remarked: "You don't walk around here at night." Filth lined the streets. The poverty and despair was visible. We dodged potholes that would wreck the suspension of a Hilux. And of all the intersections we traversed along that route from OR Tambo International to Joburg Theatre, I counted maybe five with working traffic lights. Just before hitting a flyover, the body of a man lay lifeless under a silver space blanket, an EMPD vehicle and two officers lazily waved traffic along.
In Joburg, entire lanes of the main roads are blocked off by traffic cones, not because they are under repair, but because they are so badly chewed up they cannot be driven on. Abandoned buildings with gaping, vacant windows and collapsed roofs abound. A stiff breeze kicked up thick orange dust from the piles of it that lined the streets. A decaying, destitute cityscape sits just 14km away from glitzy Sandton where a luxury and rare collectible vehicle showroom stands on the street level of the five-star Leonardo hotel and mixed-use building—at 55 stories, the tallest mixed-used building in Africa—also the site of our presidential engagement with Ramaphosa. This is a city run by ANC Mayor Dada Morero.
Ramaphosa's record of ANC leadership
The ANC governs two of the country's eight metros outright: Buffalo City in Eastern Cape and Mangaung in Free State. In the City of Tshwane, City of Joburg, City of Ekurhuleni, City of eThekwini, and Nelson Mandela Bay, it forms part of fragile and tumultuous coalitions.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, as president of the ANC, stood before editors and journalists on Monday and acknowledged that South African voters were frustrated and felt let down.
What, as the leader of this party, have you done about this frustration, Mr President?
You cannot claim that you are only just now discovering the level of rot that has led to the steep decline in support for South Africa's once-proud liberation movement. You were not today years old when you became president of this party. And you certainly are not new to how the party functions.
Ramaphosa has been in senior leadership positions of the ANC for 19 years. He was ANC Secretary General from 1991 to 1996. He served as ANC Deputy President from 2012 to 2017, after which he was elected president of the party, a position he's held since then. Taking into account his role on the senior decision-making body of the ANC, the National Executive Committee (NEC), Ramaphosa has served as a leader in the ANC for 35 years.
Mr President, you cannot seriously expect us to fawn over your candid admissions that voters are upset. You have been in charge while the party has been rotting away.
And what action is Ramaphosa taking to ensure mayors and councillors step up and improve? A stern talking to and thinly-veiled threats to their job security? Give me a break.
Talk is not reform
Ramaphosa's councillors have let their constituents down. When you're not there for the people, how do you expect the people to show up for you at the polls? And it is Ramaphosa's face on the elections posters, even though this election is at a ward and local government level, not a national one.
One thing really stood out for me at the engagement with the president on Monday.
He spoke about the threat of artificial intelligence (AI), and admitted he didn't know enough about it and would like to educate himself about it.
To this end, he told us he would be leading a physical delegation to Silicon Valley to find out the inner workings of AI and how it can be used as a tool to South Africa's benefit.
Another high-level delegation that will likely be funded by the taxpayers of South Africa.
And most poignantly, more action than he appears willing to take than responding to the GBV crisis or the steady erosion of municipalities run by councillors in his charge.
* Lance Witten is the Editor of IOL.