Ramaphosa is a consummate dissembler. He does so without blushing, without revealing any emotion or hint that he is lying. Common knowledge imputes on narcissists the ability to twist the truth to trump up a story which they actually believe. To catch them out is difficult because they will find some version of facts to convolute a story to support their case. But their argument will always be to blame someone else for something that happened under their watch.
And that is exactly what happened at the State of the Nation address last week. Ramaphosa blamed the last “lost decade” on his predecessor, as if he was absent from the scene. But he was no idle spectator viewing developments from another planet, he was in the ring boxing side by side with his nemesis. His finger was in the cookie jar together with all the “comrades” and “cadres” that grazed at the feeding through that depleted the state coffers.
Of course he ignored to comment on the last 5 years under his misrule. There was nothing to crow about and too close to most people’s hardships to concoct lies about their recent experience.! He did make a big fuss about the fact that people are living 10 years longer, if they survive the world’s worst murder rate, where more people die in a year than have died in the latest conflagration in Gaza. The credit for this achievement of course is due to medical advances and not to anything that the ANC has done.
The really big lie is that the period of state capture is done and dusted and that the ANC has expiated itself of corruption and started to punish those guilty of stealing from the state. In truth not one person has been found guilty and not one person is serving jail time for participating in state capture. Chief justice Zondo has repeatedly expressed his frustrations with the short shrift that his monumental work has been cast aside and ignored. He has also repeatedly warned that state capture is likely and possible under the ANC stewardship to the great ire and chagrin of the ANC parliamentarians.
State capture version 2 lives on in several departments under Ramaphosa’s current government. Maybe he has too many departments with too many cabinet ministers, the largest cabinet in the world, to really know what is going on. But hen, every economist has advised him to cut the size of his government and cabinet, so only he is to blame for his unresponsiveness and indifference.
Two departments in particular are emitting worrying signs of being captured-the Department of International Relations (DIRCO) and the Department of energy.