Two Bits – 19 February 2016

Seldom has the president’s State of the Nation address been tuned into by so many. Seldom has it managed to disappoint more thoroughly.
Not that it is ever the most interesting aspect of the Parliamentary year. It has always been a dry, pompous boasting by the ruling party of their achievements, never of their shortcomings.
This year we thought it might be different. What havoc would Julius cause, and would President Zuma step down?
The EFF did manage to disrupt proceedings as promised for nearly an hour, but I thought they overplayed their hand, even though their crack about ‘President Zupta’ was quite amusing. Having made their point they should have sat down and let Prez Zupta carry on with his uninspiring address.
And no, he did not resign. At which point I bet most South Africans reached for the remote and retired to bed, early. Allow me to exercise my democratic right to be disappointed.
For those who might be interested in this point, constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos agrees with the EFF that the Speaker is not entitled to impose a ruling against members raising points of order, joint sitting of the houses or not. I just wonder who advises the Speaker. Surely she can hire decent lawyers?
But I digress. Far more inspiring was the ruling of the Constitutional Court the day before, that the Prez would have to abide by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s finding that he owed the country money for Nkandla. The court laid it out flat: Zuma cannot just appoint the minister of police to come up with a whitewash finding and parliament cannot choose to overlook her office. He has to pay back the money.
So what did he say of interest? Not a lot, but one item piqued my interest. He says he wants politicians and civil servants to tighten their belts and stop wasting money on fancy events and overseas junkets. Very good, a laudable goal. Pardon me for being cynical, but I will be very interested to see whether our local politicians share his vision. They are all too fond of laying on lavish breakfasts at the best hotels that fill their stomachs but impress nobody.
And why, I ask myself, do I care a fig if our councillors stuff their faces? Because, in the first place, it is at your and my expense and, second, it is corrupt. Call it my Catholic upbringing – corruption is theft and is wrong.
If our Prez is serious about cost cutting, I would have expected him to lay down the law that politicians and civil servants have to fly economy class and that their official cars be downgraded to ordinary sedans instead of luxury SUV’s. I would have expected him to announce downscaling of his cabinet, one of the largest in the Western world. Its 74 members with all their cars, bodyguards, houses and luxury living cost the taxpayer more than R4.4 million every day, or R1.6 billion a year. How many schools could be built with that? By contrast, the cabinet of the USA has 15 members.
Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has been given the job of working out how to move Parliament to Pretoria. It does cost a lot to ferry all the those politicians back and forth and maintain a house in each city, but don’t forget that a new parliament would have to be built in Pretoria. On the upside, building a new parliament would create a lot of jobs in the process. On the downside it would cost a lot of jobs in Cape Town. Maybe that’s Zuma’s way of raising the middle digit to Helen Zille.
Ah well, next up is Pravin Gordhan’s Budget speech, and we can only hope it will offer us some hope for the coming year. But to be honest, all I really care about at the moment is when it will rain. It’s a hard road so far.
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I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed it the Jim. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.