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Just as the winds of hope were beginning to blow into our consciousness, Bathabile Dlamini took us back to the horror show that has been the mark of Jacob Zuma’s presidency.
Dlamini is officially known as the minister of social development.
This is a huge misnomer as she has no social conscience or social skills, and is one of the most intellectually underdeveloped people to hold office in democratic South Africa.
This much was evident when she testified at the inquiry into her role in the social grants crisis.
The inquiry, headed by former Gauteng Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, was set up by the Constitutional Court to establish whether Dlamini should be held personally responsible for the debacle.
It is the result of her phenomenal bungling of a social grant distribution system that endangered the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable citizens.
This compelled nongovernmental organisation Black Sash to take her and the department to court, an episode that cost the state piles of cash in legal costs.
At the inquiry this week, Dlamini behaved as if she was auditioning for a role as an evil villain in a Hollywood movie. She was mean, arrogant and dismissive.
She abused the right to use her mother tongue in her testimony.
As correct as it would be under normal circumstances, Dlamini’s insistence on testifying in isiZulu and speaking through an interpreter was just cynical.
Her evasiveness and convenient amnesia showed she was treating the process with contempt.
Dlamini is emblematic of the rotten state of South Africa in the Zuma era.
During Zuma’s tenure, the seven deadly sins – pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth – were celebrated as virtues.
These words were engraved in Dlamini’s persona as a symbol of her pleasure in being the poster child of Zuma’s regime.
