Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

The fourth instalment of The Zondo Report was delivered to the President on Friday. At the end of June the last section detailing the problems at SAA and the SABC will end the saga that has been going on for 4 years. From the report it is absolutely clear that the pitiful state that our country is in can be attributed to Jacob Zuma. He was the link between SA and the Guptas. Whatever they wanted he did and it paid him handsomely. The reason there are so many poor people living in shacks, that 5 children in the Eastern Cape died of hunger last month and that nothing works well in any of our State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) anymore can be attributed to him in one way or another. The report makes it clear that it is time for the ANC to act against Zuma and all those who were only too happy to assist him.

Evidence led shows countless examples of Zuma’s direct interference in to SAA and the Tresurary. Those who resisted his agenda were fired and officials who would do his bidding were put in their places.

The Zondo Report wants action to be taken and it points a finger directly at the ANC. It is now high time that the ANC stopped talking and started doing.

Zuma should hang his head in shame for what he not only allowed to happen, but was central in seeing that the State, to which he twice swore allegiance was almost totally impoverished to the benifit of the Guptas who became so illegally and brazenly enriched. Not only the Guptas enriched themselves, mind you, plenty cadres did very nicely indeed. Some of these cadres and top officials are so arrogant as to dare the judicial system to come after them, —such as former Eskom Group CEO Matshela Koko, who has dared the NPA to come after him. But the ‘defence’ spewed by Zuma and echoed by his followers in the RET-faction of “What did I do” is now clearly laid out in Zondo’s report. They can read the more than the 1000 pages, just published if they want to know what they did.

Ace Magashule and Mosebenzi Zwane are directly accused of money laundering in the Free State asbestos roof matter and let’s hope that they hear from the NPA shortly. Ace is currently suspended but Zwane is still sitting as an MP drawing a fat salary that we pay for.

I have said it before and I say it again, a 200 year jail sentence would not be enough for Accused No 1 for the harm he caused our country and so hurting the poorest of the poor with his deplorable manipulation of the State’s functioning. SA is rapidly becoming a failed state as we lurch from one crisis to another; so many of which could and should have been avoided.

You could actually say that the ANC under Jacob Zuma became a criminal enterprise.

The Zondo report goes far to point out how many good people we have in Government. The Treasury and those who worked so hard to stop the blatant corruption that bled the State —people like Finance Ministers Pravin Gordhan and Hhlanhla Nene, their director general Lungisa Fuzile and his team and Mcebisi Jonas who was then Deputy Finance Minister and who was offered R800 million in cash notes in a suitcase to do the Guptas bidding and who walked out of their Saxonwold home leaving the money behind. They are some of the very few who stood up to Power. Truly they are heroes.

This ANC has a lot to apologise for and heads must roll. 1500 have been fingered by the Report and not one has yet been charged. Glynnis Breytenbach, the DA shadow Minister of Justice points out that the NPA and indeed all of of us have known for more than 10 years what has been going on. Our wonderful reporters and journalists did not wait for this report to expose the rot. 

Breytenbach went ballistic in Parliament on Tuesday when she pointed out that every section of the Justice Department, from jails to court buildings was a depressing mess. She wants to know what Lamola and the ANC are doing about it. This is David Doubell’s cartoon from the Daily Friend:

It does seem as if those orange overalls are indeed coming. Our Justice Minister, Ronald Lamola has praised Judge Zondo for his report and yesterday Minister of Public Works, Pravin Gordhan publicly called for arrests of those fingered. Then the NPA had a significant victory in the courts on Tuesday when it regained control of R1.05 billion of the Gupta’s Regiments Capital assets.

The Sunday newspapers were unrelenting in their reporting and all except Iqbal Surve’s newspapers had their news reports about the Commission’s findings splashed over not just their front pages but all the way through to their editorials, picking on the many scandalous stories that were uncovered during the investigation.

Sunday was Worker’s Day and Cyril tried to address miners at a Cosatu rally in the North West. He had a rough time and was even booed. The trade union workers were singing from the time they entered the stadium in Rustenburg and were not prepared to listen to a word the President had to say. As he entered the stadium “he must go” broke out spontaneously. The disgruntled mine workers are sick of empty promises and would not allow Ramaphosa to address them with his May Day rally speech. Ultimately, when workers stormed the stage, Ramaphosa was whisked away in a police nyala to safety. 

At the very same time Julius Malema was addressing a large crowd in Mpumalanga and he told his eager followers that they, the EFF will be launching their own trade union. This is seriously bad news for our unions in general and to quote Justice Malala of the Financial Mail, this will end in bloodshed. Violence, he writes, is a normalised part of Democracy. He goes on to point out that the state of our economy lends itself perfectly to a challenge to Cosatu’s unions.

When that union gets off the ground the EFF will have a serious financial contributor that it so badly needs.

This is not good news.

The news gets worse for Ramaphosa.  On  Tuesday Cosatu accused Ramaphosa and his ANC of mismanagement. They have point. Cosatu is an important part of the ruling ANC alliance and they are unhappy. Do you see a split?

John Steenhuisen, leader of our largest Opposition Party the DA, is in Ukraine. What difference his presence there will make I’m not sure but it’s getting him lots of publicity here at home and I guess that’s important. But not all of it is good.

Cape Town’s young mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis is making a name for himself. He is active and is often behind the scenes in getting things done. He has now got the Treasury to agree to fund his investigation into making the rail service in our city the responsibility of the Municipal authority rather than PRASA’s. But the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, who is typical of our cabinet ministers except he has even less brains than most, is not happy that the mayor went behind his back.

It seems he is only happy when he is in control—- and that means that still no trains will be running on our suburban lines until he says so. Isn’t that attitude typical of an ANC cadre with power. This Rico cartoon in Business Maverick says it all.

This week on Tuesday we celebrated Press Freedom Day. How very important that is! I was once “threatened” anonymously for writing what I do and it is obvious from some responses that not everyone thinks the way I do. Remember that I do not make the news, I report it.

Some not so good news is that cases of Coronavirus have tripled here in the past week meaning that we may face a possible fifth wave imminently. 

And not such good news at all is that load-shedding is with us again and we have been warned that it may well be even worse than last time. Oh, dear.

SAFA our football association is in the news this week. Why? Because the cash-strapped sports body has awarded R 520,000 to each of its 40 NEC members. Sponsors’ money is meant to go to develop the game, not make the administrators rich.

The Stormers beat log-leaders Leinster from Ireland in the UCR competition on Saturday evening. I watched the game alone on my couch since the coach is still in Oz. It was a tough encounter and our boys did well to win, even knowing this was a Leinster B team. Our chaps are now joint second on the log with one round to play.

Spurs kept their hopes alive of ending fourth on the Premiership log with a convincing 3-1 won on Sunday afternoon. We were invited out for tea (in my case coffee) just up the road and Ceddy & Michelle who were kind enough to let me watch…..well most of the game. The socializing was lovely and the mood was enhanced by each goal. So……..

COYS.

 As always,

Gerald

PS: I try to be as accurate as I possibly can in these news updates but last week I made an error and it was pointed out by several of you. When writing about the skirmish in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians I reported that 50 had been killed. The number was 4 dead. The point is to compare that with what is happening in the Ukraine, and to run to the UN about it as the SA government did, is ludicrous.