The ANC goes into its elective conference this coming long weekend and it’s going to be interesting to see how delegates are going to handle the many dramas around its current and hopeful leaders.
But I have a feeling that while things like the Phala Phala saga will obviously be discussed, the biggest issue is going to be load shedding.
I have written before about how I believe our leaders only care about issues that they are personally affected by.
I suggested that this be one of the criteria used to select our ministers.
For example, the transport minister must be someone who uses public transport on a daily basis, while the education minister must have children attending government schools.
I am convinced that it is the only way we will see quick and effective change to the challenges we face.
I propose that the same method be employed to tackle our electricity crisis.
At the moment, ministers have the option to live in their government houses, where one of the perks is that they don’t have to contend with load shedding.
My argument is that if they and their families had to organise their days around load shedding, the problem would get urgent, prioritised attention, sitting front and centre on their agenda.
When you insert decision-makers into the consequences of their own decisions, then they are more likely to make decisions that are beneficial to all.
But if they don’t feel the impact on their lives every day the way all of us do, then it’s easy to not care. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
I do hope that the more than 4 000 delegates attending the conference at Johannesburg’s Nasrec Expo Centre this weekend, arrive determined to hold the leadership to account.
I hope they arrive from load shedding in the hope of a four-day reprieve, only to be housed in hotels where there is load shedding.
I hope that they are inconvenienced in every conceivable way by rolling blackouts and that it frustrates their progress to no end.
I hope that the impact on them as a group, together in one place, with a collective aim will be significant.
I hope that the result is that they impress upon their old and new leadership that the ongoing electricity crisis could lead to a governing-party crisis, and that load shedding could eventually lead to ANC-shedding.