Mr Lesufi, you have 72 hours to put this motion into… motion

Daily Maverick

09-06-2025

ActionSA is crowing about proposals the Gauteng government will definitely, certainly, assuredly get to, soon.
It's rather touching – the trust ActionSA has in the power of the Gauteng provincial legislature. The other day, ActionSA's website trumpeted a great victory. The minority party motioned two motions, one to do with traffic lights and the other to do with provincial oversight. And both motions were unanimously adopted! Hooray.
Unanimity surely does not happen very often in our legislatures, whether provincial, national or any other kind.
The piece on the ActionSA website, signed by Funzi Ngobeni, the party's provincial chairperson in Gauteng, states eloquently: 'The first motion, introduced by Emma More MPL, calls on the Gauteng provincial government to urgently address the persistent failures of traffic light infrastructure. The impact of malfunctioning traffic lights on road safety, productivity and the economy is staggering. Every 37 minutes wasted in traffic costs commuters approximately R28,000 annually.'
Wow. R28,000! Divide that by 37 (why didn't they do that?) and you get R756.75 wasted every minute. Why does R756.75 per minute feel like more than R28,000 every 37 minutes? Is it simply because I, for one, though I'm one of many, am terribly bad at maths, or is it because that odd number – 37 – confuses the mind in some special way that only prime numbers can?
Whatever the case, I can imagine there would have been some questions about the enormity, or failing that, the enormousness, of R28,000, especially in a province where, the Auditor-General informed us recently, the huge Johannesburg metro dispenses R2.8-billion in 'unauthorised expenditure' every year.
That's an unauthorised R100,000 (if my calculations are correct) for every 37 minutes you've spent waiting at a broken traffic light.
Personally, if I'd waited 37 minutes at a traffic light that was clearly nonfunctional, I'd surely have to check myself into the nearest mental health facility to see whether I really am a true Joburger. Most of us don't even wait 37 milliseconds. But let us not get distracted by personal matters.
Rather, let us reconsider those numbers. R2.8-billion in unauthorised expenditure every year? Calculated differently, that's R100-million for every ANC member of the Gauteng provincial legislature.
Yes, there are indeed 28 ANC members of the provincial legislature, and I'm beginning to feel a conspiracy theory of the Da Vinci Code kind coming on… What's it with all the 2s and 8s? Next there'll be a link to the 28s gang!
Still, the numbers, fascinating though they are, are not my main point here. Nor is the fact that the ActionSA motions were 'unanimously adopted' – the second one, about giving MPLs more oversight, too. Are all the parties in the Gauteng legislature in a coalition? That would certainly solve some problems. Anyway, that unanimity is pleasing. The last time any South African legislative body was unanimously in support of anything was when it was declared that smoking was bad for you and should be legislated out of existence.
What I find so touching is the faith ActionSA has in the Gauteng legislature of which it is so vibrant a part. Motion your motion, get it unanimously approved and… what?
Are all the bodies and persons responsible for traffic lights now going to knuckle down and soon all the traffic lights in Gauteng will be moving serenely through their cycle of green, red and orange without interruption?
You will note they didn't put a time frame on it. No, they didn't commit the strategic error of the ANC's Gauteng premier, His Highness Panyaza Lesufi, when he said in his State of the Province Address, I think it was, that all potholes would be fixed within 72 hours. That is, if I understand the premier correctly (yes, I know it's difficult), no more than 72 hours would elapse between the reporting of that pothole that's just opened up in your street and its successful closure – sorry, 'resolution', by pothole officials.
A strategic error, I say, because I've been keeping an eye on most of the 47 potholes within a kilometre of my house and they're still there – whereas it's certainly more than 72 hours since the premier made that promise in his speech.
Perhaps some time has to elapse before that promise becomes an instruction to the relevant civil servants, and then perhaps a mandatory period has to elapse before any action is taken? Perhaps Lesufi forgot to add 'And this will become law in a year's time,' or something like that? Timelines for instructions from above to be heard and acted upon by those below seem variable, but I'm sure if it doesn't happen, Lesufi can blame his coalition partners, or perhaps just the Democratic Alliance (DA), whose members are well-known subverters of any good idea the ANC comes up with.
I mean, the DA has been complaining since the aforementioned State of the Province Address (or Sopa, which means 'candyfloss' in seven of South Africa's 12 official languages) that all the thousands of kitskonstabels (instant constables) hired by Lesufi to help curb crime in the province haven't helped. Not to mention the helicopters.
There are helicopters? Lesufi bought helicopters for the kitskonstabels? And we thought it was only BMWs.
Let's not go down that road, or at least not today. It is a road with too many potholes.
And maybe that R28,000 wasted every 37 minutes pales next to some of the other numbers thrown up by the Auditor-General. Johannesburg, she said, had awarded more than R987-million to contractors 'with close ties to employees or councillors' of the city. That's what a journalist of the yellow press variety would call a pretty 'dodgy tender'.
Okay, R987-million is a large amount of money and should probably be looked into – though the relevant officer of the city was already fingered in a dodgy tender case but has been cleared of Special Investigating Unit charges by a mysterious inner ANC process. Still, R987-million is a lot less than R2.8-billion. This is surely an incontrovertible fact, even to those expensive lawyers hired by the ANC to compose internal reports that the mayor can leave in his bottom drawer for a few decades.
At least the Honourable Premier of Gauteng, Mr Lesufi, didn't object when the ActionSA motion calling for more oversight by MPLs was passed unanimously – so, by the 28 ANC members too. They obviously endorse the idea that, in Ngobeni's words, the 'motion responds directly to the executive's pattern of disregarding legitimate oversight interventions such as its failure to place the Emfuleni Municipality under mandatory administration despite sustained collapse'.
'Sustained collapse' may be oxymoronic, but never mind. ActionSA goes on, in a distinctly firm tone of voice: 'The unanimous support for these motions sends a clear message: accountability, transparency and basic service delivery are non-negotiable.
'We commend all political parties that voted in support [that's everyone, then], and we call on the Gauteng executive [that's Lesufi] to immediately act on the resolutions of the house.'
Did you hear that, Mr Lesufi?
You have 72 hours. DM
Shaun de Waal is a writer and editor.
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.