Mr President, cancel that thing!

mealy-mouthed defences he offered to TV host JJ Tabane early in the week.

Many South Africans believed the only industry that would benefit would be tenderpreneurs and the “steal” sector.

Artists and cultural workers literally starved during lockdown and museums were forced to close. Others lie in near-ruin. All of them could have done with the kind of cash Mthethwa was willing to splash out for a flag.

In a speech at the Black Business Council’s annual summit aired on

ENCA on Thursday night, a chuckling President Cyril Ramaphosa said the minister turned to him for advice.

Mthethwa, he said, complained that “this flag thing, which is such a wonderful initiative, it seems that our people are not happy with it”.

To much laugher in the audience and from the podium, Ramaphosa told him that of course they weren’t happy and to “cancel this thing”.

So it seems the "Monumental Flag Project“is dead.

The minister has said it was being reviewed by his department, but that was before the president and his audience got the giggles over the storm.

Is it too much to hope that he will run up a white flag instead?

And to read the room better when he next has a brainwave that will infuriate the people he is meant to serve.