Deadly floods expose Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane's chaotic leadership

Thamsanqa D. Malinga

THE many lives lost in the Eastern Cape in wake of the severe weather that engulfed the province last week, and the country, should have never been. 

Had it not been for the ineptitude of Premier Oscar Mabuyane and his government, the disaster could have been minimised or averted and the families could have been spared the pain of double blow, losing property and loved ones.

The Eastern Cape is the country's second largest province by land area and yet it is the country's poorest. The province has the highest unemployment rate. For years since the dawn of democracy this province has been South Africa's forgotten child.

It has been the place where political ineptitude thrives. The province where avarice and corruption are the foundations of government. For the larger part of our democracy, as South Africans we have come to accept that service delivery and the Eastern Cape are just water and oil. 

Enter Oscar Lubabalo Mabuyane, the Eastern Cape seemed to disappear altogether from South Africa's map. The province 'vanished' into thin air. The only time it will resurface is when the premier or one of his officials is allegedly embroiled in a qualification scandal or some other controversy. 

Then the province would vanish again only to resurface when it hosts its provincial ANC Conference as it prepares a slate that will go to the National Conference of the mother body, to back another slate. Notice, nothing about anything developmental has been said in between its David Copperfield moments.

It is no surprise that television exposè programme Cutting Edge has famously made itself popular by turning the province into its hunting ground for heart-wrenching stories. Stories of gripping poverty, unabated corruption and malfeasance.

Stories of how people have been left in the periphery of non-being. Children crossing ravaging rivers in order to get to school, and families having to carry coffins across flooded rivers to bury loved ones whilst promises of a bridge are not kept for ages. I digress.

Back to the disaster that has befallen the province. I was flabbergasted listening to the Premier's interview with the state broadcaster and how he spoke. He kept on pushing everything to some unknown helper that they have been waiting for assurance from.

I have never seen a premier of a province, a man who has been at the helm for six years and one of the longest serving Premiers of President Ramaphosa's New Dawn, speaking like a ward councilor from some unknown village.

Really now! Oscar Mabuyane was asked about the absence of divers for search and rescue in Umthatha and he waxed lyrical about one helicopter that is based in Gqeberha and how they have been asking for assistance for years and he went to Tarshish and got swallowed by a giant fish and all that and he prayed whilst inside the giant fish. It was such a sad story to listen to from the head of the province. 

I am saying it is a sad story because Mabuyane became premier of the Eastern Cape in the year of our Lord 2019. In 2020 just before we had COVID lockdown, the province was hit by floods. There were casualties recorded. Then came the 2021 festive season floods with its casualties. Again in 2022 torrential rains caused widespread destruction and damage, claiming the lives of 20 people, the highest at the time.

In the six years Mabuyane has been the premier in this poorest and second largest province in the country, the Eastern Cape has been struck by natural disasters three times. 

When the worst disaster struck last week, the man shone in his absence only to emerge and spew diatribe on national television. It was embarrassing to watch. Disgusting, at least. Three natural disasters hit the province, yet there was no disaster management plan put in place. 

Even worse, the South African Weather Service had issued an alert way ahead that severe weather was inbound for eight provinces bar Limpopo. Mabuyane, like the forever absent Cameroonian president Paul Biya, together with his government had their head in the sand as we know them to be.

He knew he had one helicopter, and still was not proactive to mobilise resources. He knew he had no divers and enough K9 units and didn't act. What was he doing? Where was he? Where was his government? Inside a fish on their way back from Tarshish? Had they ceded the province like they normally do only to return it at their whim? 

Oscar Lubabalo Mabuyane displayed the highest level of incompetence this time around. We have tolerated enough of his absence, ineptitude and that of his government.

The Eastern Cape has had its fair share of bad leadership but Mabuyane's is just intolerable and it doesn't need nearly 100  lives to convince us as such. His Youth Day jamboree, at the beginning of the week, is what he knows best, garnering media attention as he dishes away hand-outs and singing his praises like some old African despot whose time has long run out and whose reputation could be saved by throwing frivolity at the poor. 

The people of the Eastern Cape are dying in squalor and drowning in torrential rains, bodies are still being picked up floating in Mthatha dam. People cannot afford to eat cake and be subjected to see dead bodies float by in nearby streams as the Premier and his Cabinet continue to administer the province in absentia from Mount Venus or inside the big fish supposedly taking them to Niniveh.

Malinga is an Independent Political Commentator and author of "Blame Me on Apartheid" as well as "A Dream Betrayed"