MPs should lead with their feet

In South Africa, how you get around matters.

If you have no car and can’t afford to use a ride-hailing service, you are largely at the mercy of the county’s rickety state-backed public transport system and the minibus taxi industry to get to and from work.

Those with cars have the freedom to travel as they please, but are subject to the vagaries of fuel price hikes, e-tolls, faulty traffic lights and the misery of traffic jams.

Both groups, however, understand the difficulty the country is in. They see the desperate, begging with cup and placard in hand at virtually every traffic light.

Official South Africa does not have to deal with this. Their blue light brigades don’t have time for traffic jams and so they race past the rest of us. The despair they pass is just a blur.

In its latest budget, government has once again committed to maintaining this blur.

It increased the allocation for VIP protection and related activities by 9.34% to R3.44 billion – higher than the money set aside for land reform at R2.93 billion.

It has done so progressively for the past few years, with the budget of R2.55 billion for the 2016/17 period projected to rise to R3.83 billion by 2022/23.

Under the budget for protection and security, the president, former presidents, their spouses, the deputy president, “persons related” to the president and deputy president, and local and international dignitaries get protection.

It could be argued that with more ex-presidents around, the money set aside for protecting them should increase.

However, the US government used to offer the same kind of state protection to its ex-presidents but eventually passed a law saying they would have to pay for their own protection.

Do ex-presidents and their families really need the state to provide them with protection after their stay in office has come to an end?

Take former president Kgalema Motlanthe. He was in office for just seven months – over ten years ago – but still enjoys the never-ending protection of the state. At a recent memorial for the late anti-apartheid activist Ben Turok, held at Community House in Cape Town, Motlanthe arrived in a four-car security cavalcade.

Was that necessary?

Couldn’t he just have taken a ride-hailing service? That’s exactly what Finance Minister Tito Mboweni did to get to a dinner meeting recently.

Many in the ruling party like to hold up elements of how the Nordic countries operate, as examples of what they want to see in SA. If they prize them so highly they should follow the lead of Sweden, where there are no official cars or private drivers for ministers and MPs.

According to Claudia Wallin, in her book ‘Sweden – The Untold Story’, the country’s elected officials are even shamed in the media if they use taxis, as this money could have been used on the public transport system, which benefits all citizens.

Under this standard, even the Uber-taking Mboweni would have come in for a public scolding.

The counter-argument is that Official South Africa cannot depend on a rickety public transport service – which they preside over – to get around.

The work they do is so important that they cannot afford to get up at 5am to stand in line at a taxi rank, hoping the vehicle they get into doesn’t end up in an accident. All so that they can stand outside their place of work, which will only open in an hour’s time.

No. They don’t have time to be like the rest of us, because they know very well that how you get around in SA matters.