One is tempted to think the row about perks for ministers, as outlined in the updated Ministerial Handbook, was deliberately contrived to make President Cyril Ramaphosa look like a caring leader.
After all, who in his right mind would – at a time of unprecedented economic hardship among most South Africans – decree that top government employees would now also get their municipal services bills at their official (free) residences paid by the government?
It might look as though the offer was made only to enable Ramaphosa to countermand it later, seeming like the good guy in the process … the president who listened to the anger of his people and acted.
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Given that no one in the ANC – to use Smuts Ngonyama’s immortal words – “joined the struggle to be poor”, we think it is far more likely that Ramaphosa was happily spreading out the taxpayer-funded gravy to ensure loyalty ahead of the critical end-of-year elective conference.
He seems to have been caught off-guard by the strength of the reaction from the public – led by the Democratic Alliance threatening legal action.
This proves not that Ramaphosa is a sensitive leader, but that the ANC is badly out of touch with the struggles of ordinary South Africans
