By Colleen Makhubele
The story goes that the hunters put an apple in a glass jar with a narrow opening and leave the jar deep into the jungle under a tree. In the evening, the monkeys come out of the trees, triggered by the alluring fragrance of the apple. They find the jar by following their noses. As soon as a monkey sees the apple in the jar, it doesn’t hesitate, puts a hand in, and grabs the apple.
But when it tries to pull the hand out, it gets stuck in the neck of the jar because holding the apple makes the hand too big for the neck. The monkey is caught in an agonising dilemma: letting go of the apple and having its hand back, or trying over and over to pull the hand and the apple out of the jar. The desire for the apple wins. In the morning, when the hunters return, they find the jar with the monkey next to it on the ground, exhausted. Its hand is still stuck in the jar. Too exhausted to fight the hunters, too tired to flee. “An easy prey,” Torben Rick said.
The sheer incompetence in governance injected by the insatiable greed of DA in coalitions has led to their sterling job in single-handedly collapsing all Gauteng metros financially and the appalling dismal failure in delivering basic services to our people. They are like a monkey’s hand stuck in a jar, and minority coalitions with the ANC, EFF, and PA are eating them for supper as we jointly clean up their mess in the City of Joburg and other metros to follow.
Their irreparable superior attitude of selfish greed for power and position has seen them holding on to power at all costs; even in the City of Joburg where the DA and Action SA is now governing with ANC coalition. Contrary to what they say in the media, the DA and Action SA has been governing with ANC coalition and continue to do so. Both the DA and Action SA have chairpersons running key committees such as public safety and infrastructure, environmental and service delivery (which looks after energy and water and all key services in the city). They are quick to point fingers but have failed in their governance and oversight.
The cities of Ekurhuleni and Tshwane have now become a national embarrassment to watch. The Ekurhuleni speaker has turned the council into his playground, using the judiciary to hang on to straws of power, knowing full well that the DA will never pass a budget or get any service delivery resolutions taken in council because they have no numbers. What business do they think they will conduct in that environment without the majority's approval? The DA has made it its mission to drive a sinister narrative that coalitions do not work at the expense of residents.
They have taken a posture of selfishly and arrogantly running circles around metros that they know they have lost out of power and greed for positions and just like the monkey with hand stuck in the cookie jar, they are failing to democratically hand over power and allow those that have the heart, capacity to govern and ability to serve our vulnerable people, to do so.
The tragedy of the DA and its partners is their deliberate "head in the sand" attitude and failure to acknowledge and recognise well in advance when change has come and agility is needed. Historically, it was the tragedy of the apartheid government for a long time.
Indeed, an easy prey for the liberation movement ANC then. Fast-forward to now, an easy prey and ploughing a fertile ground for the minority parties and Government of Local Unity coalitions. Like the National Party of old, the DA is stuck in a jar. Well, they have mastered the opposition bench anyway, where they rightfully belong. Governing diverse communities is too big for the DA.
*Cope Cllr Colleen Makhubele, Speaker of the City of Joburg.