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Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu — what on Earth happened to the social compact?

Bhekisisa Mncube
By Bhekisisa Mncube
5 Dec 2024
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Please, my leader, explain to me slowly, like someone speaking to a five-year-old child whose toys were bought with money deposited via ATMs, how 100 days morphed into 1,030 days without a word of the social compact?

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! At it again, shuffling the Titanic’s deck chairs while the ship is sinking. This week’s early night artificial Cabinet reshuffle does absolutely nothing to restore “investor confidence” or renew the “people’s contract” with ordinary citizens who abandoned your party in droves during the recent May elections.

Let former minister of Justice and Constitutional Development (the irony), Thembi Simelane, pursue her so-called first love, “entrepreneurship”, if Daily Maverick's investigative team is to be believed.

My leader, I wouldn’t believe a word from them if I were you. I would wager my last rand that journalists of all hues known for indulging in amber liquids and being utterly clueless about running a business (look at all print media on its knees) couldn’t be trusted with understating a million-rand empire run by Simelane — including cash deposits at ATMs, with no black refuse plastic bags stuffed with cash in sight. No electronic funds transfer with a funny reference: “Streetwise Zizi”.

Simelane seems to embrace the cash economy, snapping up vacant lots for cash. So my leader, let uGal have her fun building an empire with ATM cash deposits (what an innovation), doing “shopping therapy” using money from the “proceeds of friendship”, or “loans” Zizi Kodwa style. To do so without the scrutiny that comes with public office, cut her loose.

I digress; let’s return to part two of my series about the lies you have told us since 2018.  

But, my leader, perhaps don’t act in haste; we might have hit gold; contractors for low-cost housing might soon find themselves being paid in cash by Simelane as the new minister of Human Settlements every fortnight, something your government has failed to do in the much-vaunted 30-day period policy.

According to the National Treasury, by the end of June 2024, the number of unpaid invoices older than 30 days stood at 49,091, and valued R6.6-billion. Alarmingly, provincial departments had 47,440 such invoices, amounting to R6.5-billion.

The irony is that in your 2022 State of the Nation Address (Sona), you announced with fanfare initiatives to reduce red tape and improve government efficiency, including appointing a seasoned business executive, former CEO of Exxaro Resources, Mr Sipho Nkosi, to lead a Red Tape Reduction Team. On Nkosi’s to-do pile was to ensure that all service providers were paid within 30 days.

Yet, according to Nkosi and you, my leader, red tape has yet to be cut. So, you have squandered a total of 1,030 days or 24,720 hours, again building all fur coat and no knickers while we ordinary people and the much-touted foreign direct investors wait in vain for the bureaucratic hurdles, cumbersome regulations, obsolete legislation, and amateurish (paper-based) systems to be modernised to ignite growth and address the unemployment nightmare.

In February last year, you and Nkosi told the Citizen newspaper that the President’s Red Tape Reduction Task Team’s power was limited, by guess what — “red tape”, and that not “much” had been achieved. This failure to deliver on your promises should leave every citizen fuming.

A spanking new social compact


In the same address, you promised a spanking new social compact with social partners — government, labour, business and communities. In case someone accuses me of embellishing, you told Parliament (House of Nothingness): “We have given ourselves 100 days to finalise a comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger.”

Please, my leader, explain to me slowly, like someone speaking to a five-year-old child whose toys were bought with money deposited via ATMs, how 100 days morphed into 1,030 days without a word of the social compact? Okay, that may be a tricky question.

Put differently, what is your economic policy since you took the reins from uBaba (Jacob Zuma) on 15 February 2018, totalling six years and 296 days, equivalent to 355 weeks or 59,664 hours? This is despite my warning here that the Union Buildings were overflowing with a surplus of advisory councils, presidential working committees, leadership teams, master plans, social compacts and, of late, national crisis committees for every conceivable problem. Solutions, dololo (nothing).

Clearly, you don’t take me seriously even though I am the only son of MaMlambo, a faith healer who dedicated her entire adult life to healing the sick and infirm.

In truth, I have squandered copious amounts of beer, data, and ink since 12 February 2020, crafting these masterpieces of correspondence to you every week. That’s 251 weeks — week after week — of me pouring my soul on to the page while you’ve mastered the art of radio silence.

Honestly, I’ve had more meaningful conversations with my cats, Tigger and Smudge. It’s as if my letters always land in File 13 of the bureaucracy, never to be seen or heard of again.

In 2021, you told Parliament it “wasn’t an ordinary Sona”. Unprovoked, you promised measures to “overcome poverty and hunger, joblessness and inequality”. Yet, according to the SA Food Security Index 2024, there was a sharp drop in South Africa’s food security score, from 64.9 in 2019 to 45.3 in 2023, where zero represents severe food insecurity.

The study also found that the growth of 25% of South African children is stunted, a higher rate than in lower-income countries such as Zimbabwe, which has a stunting rate of 23.5%.

Three years later, Stats SA reports that unemployment is a key driver of poverty, with 64.2% of unemployed individuals living below the poverty line, highlighting the direct link between employment and poverty alleviation. It adds that female-headed households are 48% more likely to live in poverty compared with male-headed households; 67% of female-headed households fall below the upper poverty line. Just this week, the economy contracted yet again.

According to the World Bank’s Macro Poverty Outlook for South Africa: April 2024 report, the country continues to exhibit one of the highest levels of income inequality globally, with a Gini coefficient of 0.63.

Sadly, during your six-year reign of the “New Dawn”, the economy has grown by no more than 1%, oscillating between contraction and minimal growth. On average, the figures from 2018 to 2024 depict an economy struggling to find its footing, with its overall growth trajectory hindered by policy uncertainty, red tape, slow economic reforms, load shedding, external shocks, and internal government bureaucratic inefficiencies.

You run a country where statistics show that approximately 7.89 million adults are unemployed as of the third quarter of 2024, while 24 million are on social grants against a tax base of just 7.1 million. 

“It’s an enormous mark of failure, and it is not sustainable,” Ann Bernstein, the director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a Johannesburg-based think-tank, told Reuters.

On 14 August 2018, you launched the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (Safe) initiative to eliminate pit latrines in nearly 4,000 predominantly rural and township schools across South Africa, ensuring safe and appropriate sanitation facilities for all learners. The Department of Basic Education has made significant progress, according to new Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, eliminating approximately 92% of pit toilets across nearly 4,000 schools nationwide.

New deadline


However, as of November 2024, about 200 schools still required intervention. The new deadline now to complete the Safe project is 31 March 2025. How many ANC politicians does it take to build a new modern toilet? Never mind.

I am afraid to tell Minister Gwarube that on 1 April 2025, journalists will present to her thousands more pit latrines that have not been upgraded because the department doesn’t know the extent of the crisis; it is all based on thumb-sucking by officials, mark my words. It has taken the fat cats in government an astonishing six years and 75 months, 2,290 days, and 54,960 hours, to reach a 92% success rate, but, of course, their figures cannot be relied upon.

One day, when the “battle is lost and won” and the ANC is kicked in the teeth in the coming local government elections, you will remember my words. A Chinese proverb says it better: “When you tell one lie, you must tell 10 more to cover it up.”

Promises after promises, you think people are stupid. The “masses of our people” will rise, and the July “Zuma” 2021 riots will look like a Sunday picnic.

Till next week, my man. Send me nowhere, Ke December boss. DM

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