ANOTHER week, another Guptagate! And can you believe it’s once again about a plane?

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa used a plane owned by a Gupta company to fly to Japan for an official state visit, and a lot of people aren’t too happy about it.

Is it just coincidence that the government ended up hiring a plane belonging to a family the President is known to be friendly with?

And is it also just a coincidence that the President’s son is a director at the company that owns the plane?

Maybe. I mean, it’s a small world, isn’t it?

And there aren’t too many people in Mzansi who own such a fancy long-range aircraft.

But there sure seems to be a lot of coincidences whenever the names Zuma and Gupta come up together.

I was thinking about all of this when my mind suddenly drifted to another topic entirely: sport. What’s the link? Let me explain.

I really love soccer. Like any South African man I have it in my blood.

In the last few years I’ve also started getting into rugby. I don’t love it nearly as much as soccer, but it’s a fun game to watch!

The rules of the two games are naturally different. You can’t pick up and run with the ball in soccer, like you can in rugby.

Trying to start a scrum in a soccer game will see you red-carded, and maybe a life ban.

I’m sure there are people out there who play both sports, but when they run onto the field they have to know which game they’re playing and stick to its rules.

And this brings us back to the Gupta saga and the political situation in our country.

To me, it seems top government and political players can’t decide what game they want to play. That’s why they keep breaking the rules all the time.

Sometimes, they seem to want to play the modern liberal democracy game, where opposition parties have an important role. There’s a separation between the executive, legislature and judiciary, a free media, transparency and a system of free enterprise and competition that looks down on  patronage and corruption.

At other times, they want to play some sort of totalitarian socialist game, where opposition parties are seen as enemies of the state, the legislature and judiciary exist to rubber stamp decisions of the executive, the media’s only role is to glorify the ruler, and positions and money are distributed according to a system of patronage.

Sometimes, when the latter game is played, there’s an “African tradition” spin put on it, and we’re told that patronage is the African way, the chief shouldn’t be criticised and that he deserves to get nice things because, after all, he’s the chief.

Let’s not get into the pros and cons of these different political games or forms of government.

Mine is not to argue which one is best, I’m here to say you have to decide which one you’re playing.

You can’t have it both ways.

ALL that happens when you try to do that is you waste a lot of time and money. A good example is when someone follows the rules of the second game, and gives a job or tender to someone on the basis of friendship, not competence.

Fine!

But then because we’re also apparently playing according to the rules of the first game, we now will spend a lot of time and money
appointing some commission of inquiry to look into “allegations of corruption”.

What nonsense!

It’s like we are schizophrenic or something.

It’s time we make up our minds – because, if we don’t, we’ll always end up losing badly against countries who aren’t as confused as we are. 

Let me know what you think!

Send an e-mail to [email protected].

Until next time, salani kahle!

This article first appeared in the Sunday Sun.