ANC can run a spectacular show for the media

There are some things which the ANC manages to do very well. Don’t start shouting – that is not a misprint. They certainly can’t run a country very well. They are not the last word in integrity. But they can run a spectacular show for the media.

Take the saga of our very own “Bonnie and Clyde” – convicted rapist and possible murderer Thabo Bester and his accomplice in love and larceny, Dr Nandipha Magudumana.

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“The Cat in the Hat”, Police Minister Bheki Cele, and Justice Minister Ronald Lamola, were up early yesterday to brief the media on the arrival of the fugitives back in the country. It seems as they were flown in an SA Air Force VIP jet.

Bester was locked up in an armoured Nyala vehicle and transported back to Mangaung Prison, from where he escaped last year.

Magudumana was escorted by a phalanx of heavily armed cops, accompanied by a convoy of flashing light vehicles, in a performance worthy of a cheap made-for-TV thriller. And that is what it all was: made for consumption by the public … on the assumption that most of us are stupid.

ALSO READ: Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha Magudumana back in SA

All of this showboating is supposed to convey a sense of efficiency from our security forces; just as the “inspection visits” to power stations by our minister of electricity were supposed to show the load shedding situation is under control.

Ditto with the bi-annual “road safety” blitzes of concerned ministers and scores of cop cars, all promising to “end the carnage”. Yet, in all of these cases, the reality is exactly the opposite of the made-for-TV dramas.

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Bester escaped both prison and the country, showing the incompetence of our security agencies. Load shedding is worse than ever. The body count on the roads mounts up. This tactic is not even papering over the cracks. It is blatant misdirection by the ANC.