The Week That Was

Gerald Potash

Hello again,

Could it be that Cyril’s reign is coming to an end as head of the ANC and as President of this country? His actions confirm what almost every political commentator has speculated. He is a wuss.

He is nothing more than a hollow wimp who promises but does nothing. He promised to fix our electricity, he promised a new social compact and to create jobs, he promised to fix education and to fix crime, he promised to unite the party. 

He has done none of these and Thabo Mbeki tore into him during his speech at Jesse Duarte’s memorial service on Thursday night, where the hall was filled to capacity with ANC loyalists paying tribute the ultimate grouch. 

Mbeki warned that another explosion of looting and riots like those in Durban last year are not unlikely and the government has done simply nothing. Nothing.

Tony Leon in his op-Ed in Business Day this week while having a serious “go” at the ANC leadership quotes Moeletsi Mbeki saying that they (the leadership of the ANC) are like a group of children playing with a hand grenade; one day one of them will work out how to pull out the pin and everyone will be killed.

At the closing ceremony of the KZN ANC elective congress on Sunday evening, almost unexpectedly Ramaphosa showed up to close the Provincial Congress. The rumour circulating all that day was that he would not show since the entire KZN leadership (his support faction there) had been voted out of office.

As Cyril walked into the closing session, after 7pm, the crowd was singing Wenzeni uZuma (What has Zuma done?) and many even booed him.

KZN is the strongest ANC province and they are firmly anti-Ramaphosa and now they have a new steering committee loyal to Zuma. The Zuma (RET) faction now call themselves the Taliban.

Ek sê maar niks.    Maar Rico sê dit so in Business Maverick:\

One of the first statements to come from that Taliban faction after their win was that they want to change the ANC step-aside rule for accused cadres. They believe it should only be implemented once the cadre has been found guilty of any crime in court. 

Cyril was also the main news item on Friday when he conceded to the acting Public Protector (Kholeka Gcaleka) as she was about to issue a subpoena for him to answer 31 questions about the millions of dollars stolen from the furniture in his farmhouse. This final warning to answer came after he had been granted a 4 week extension of the original two week deadline granted by her. An explanation obviously became necessary after Athur Fraser’s bombshell which he had waited two years to drop. Why the long wait? 

After missing the original date to answer the PP’s questions because he was ‘too busy’ and then asking for another extension, Cyril eventually gave in saying it was always his intention to reply to her request. Surely anyone can see that Cyril’s delaying tactics are no more than stalingrading and his answers may well turn into a two edged sword that will confirm that he did indeed hide information that by law had to be reported to the police.

Cyril’s answers will not be made public. Not now anyway.

This story has legs; watch this space.

I am extremely irritated by the fact that the ANC gets too much publicity. Granted a lot of it is negative but if you are a regular TV watcher in our country there are probably many who would not even be able to answer a simple question; name one political party other than the ANC. This past weekend we got nonstop news crammed down our throats of what was happening at the ANC conference in Durban. Last week it was the same but in Mpumalanga. Worse than boring it is outrageous that only the ANC party gets this kind of publicity.

ANC political officials are continuously interviewed and on Saturday Paul Mashatile (ANC big shot) told all watching TV that there is no other choice than the ANC in the upcoming General Election. The uneducated (and here there are too many) hear only one side of the story. Many of us react by just tuning in to another channel, but that doesn’t make the bias OK.

The big question is…..if the ANC does lose at the General Election in 2024 will they go?

Remember how Thabo Mbeki supported Robert Mugabe who badly lost the 2000 referendum in Zimbabwe, so that Mgugabe could stay in office?

Could the same not happen here?

For 14 years SA has been suffering electricity outages. On Monday night Cyril addressed the Nation about our energy crisis. The droning, boring voice was the same as during his “family chats” while Covid raged. He has ‘magnanimously’ scrapped the requirement for the licencing of private energy projects and advised that we are going to be buying energy from our neighbour states. It took 14 years of power outages for the government to realise that our neighbouring States have an oversupply of electricity! 

Mark Swilling, a Prof at Stellenbosch University, believes that lifting the ban on stand-alone electricity generation projects will add enormously to the grid with the benefit that it will cost the State nothing. The 83 projects in the pipeline should see SA end blackouts. Now wouldn’t that be loverrrly?

However a warning. Paul Hoffman writes in Daily Maverick yesterday that all Cyril’s plans mean nothing unless it urgently addresses the corruption at the SOE.

The NEC of the ANC resolved in August 2020 to instruct Cabinet, as a matter of urgency, to establish a new, independent, stand-alone, specialised entity to deal with corruption without fear, favour or prejudice. There has been no sign of urgent activity in the nearly two years that have elapsed since the resolution was passed. 

John Hlope (the Justice President of the Western Cape Division) tried to influence two Constitutional Court Judges to rule in favour of Jacob Zuma in 2008 when Zuma wanted 93,000 pages of evidence against him in the ‘Arms Deal’ case scrapped. This action by our Judge President was reported to the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and since then this matter has been back and forth from one court to another in the most typical of Stalingrading tactics you have ever seen.

Well this week, after appeal after appeal the JSC told Cyril that he can and must suspend Chief Justice Hlope from office and, pending only a mandate from Parliament, that he be impeached.

At last, accountability.

There is a terrible water shortage in Gqberha (PE to you) and ANC big shots, including the cabinet Minister of water affairs, were there to accept the praise for the news that three boreholes had been successfully completed and that some water was flowing again. 

The only problem was that notwithstanding this long-lasting  disaster being temporarily terminated by these boreholes it had nothing to do with the ANC Minister or the mayor (ANC) or the councillor (also ANC) who were all standing and posing for photos while taking credit. The boreholes were done by that wonderful welfare organisation, Gift of the Givers, led by Dr Imtiaz Sooliman.  The work that they successfully complete is really miraculous and their projects frequently stretch to all over the world where SAfricans are in trouble.

The good Dr believes that SA is the best place in the world to live.

This week the detained Gupta brothers failed in their bid to get bail where they are being held in Dubai and the NPA is positive that they will be extradited to SA. Don’t hold your breath though, this process could take a long time, even years.

The PIC which manages the Goverment Employees Pension Fund has sold its entire holding of Iqbal Survé’s fishing company shares. Sekunjalo owns the majority of this listed company and the PIC has got rid of 51 million shares in Premier Fishing.

The shares have been bought by a company controlled by Survé, 3 Law Capital. Who else would buy them?

A former editor of the Star newspaper (sister newspaper to the Cape Times & Argus and now part of Survé’s empire), Peter Sullivan, wrote a letter to Business Day this week calling out how Survé’s years at the helm of the IOL newspaper Group lacked ethics and has seen the circulation of that once proud newspaper shrink from 250,000 a day to 25,000. None of the 21 editors in Survé’s group stood up to him when his paper published the false story of the10 (decuplets) birth in SA. Sullivan ends his letter by stating that he is ashamed of his former company editors’ complicity.

Time magazine has just nominated Fransch Hoek alongside some of the most celebrated tourist destinations on the planet as a place to visit. Tourism does not get a better boost than this.

A page copied from The Times that Tom sent me from London about our rugby is worrying.  Stuart Barnes (ex-England fly-half and rugby commentator for Sky Sports) analyses our play and doesn’t give us or any Southern hemisphere sides much chance of winning the World Cup crown next year in France. It is an interesting article that I can share.
 

A very quiet sports weekend was transformed into a serious party when our ladies soccer team returned on Tuesday after winning the Africa Cup of Nations and now Banyana Banyana are the champions of Africa. 

SA is seriously short of good news and the media went mad with this result. Of course even Cyril had picture taken with the team and lauded them with all the platitudes you would expect him from him.  Zapiro was up to it too with this cartoon yesterday in Daily Maverick.

The cricket was rained out in Leeds and so the ODI series was tied 1-1. Then late last night England beat the Proteas in the first of the T20’s. No rugby test, the football in England hasn’t started yet and so there was no coach on the couch.

As always,                                                                                        

Gerald