The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,
 

As to be expected after the Oval Office spectacle last Wednesday very many views of the meeting between the Presidents have been aired. My first impression that we, and by that I mean SA, did rather well— has changed. Ramaphosa did badly. Smiling and giggling every time Trump called for a strong response was not Ramaphosa doing well. The spinelessness was just too evident in our President who will do anything to avoid confrontation. 

You will remember that Ramaphosa called those Afrikaner’s who left SA for America cowards, but he is the coward for doing nothing.  At least these Afrikaners have done something.

This cartoon from DavidDToons in the Daily Friend on Tuesday says it all:

Mind you, the meeting wasn’t entirely wasted on SA, it seems.  Ramaphosa, after their lunch, to which we were not privy,  said that Trump had agreed to attend the G20 meeting in Johannesburg in December.  That after stating that he wasn’t going to come.  If he does come it will be a big win for Cyril, but I suppose he could send someone else in his place.

Julius Malema has made lots & lots of news this week.  After that Oval Office TV showing of his dancing and egging on his compadres to kill the whites in SA he has been he has had lots to say. 

My problem is that this racist ranting is exactly what the Nazi’s did in the 1930’s in Germany.  The far rightists in Germany egged their followers on to target the “wealthy Jews”.

They did and 6 million were murdered in the Holocaust of hate.

Now the young mostly uneducated, workless youth are a target for this spewing of hate by the right-winged Malema and his crew. How long before they start throwing stones into white-owned shops to loot? How much longer after that will they start killing?

Malema is dangerous but Ramaphosa has never even once commented on his spreading of vile hate. There are only 4.5 million whites in this country and they are all the target of Malema and his followers.  As you know the Nazi’s went on to kill 6 million Jews.  And Ramaphosa just sat and looked at Malema performing on the TV clip and smiled.

White S Africans should take note and take some sort of action before the killing starts.

On Monday Malema made it quite clear that he is not going to stop singing ‘Kill the farmer, kill the boer’.  He is on record saying that his compadres must shoot to kill.

I cannot understand that five Constitutional Court judges found that that song is not hate speech but a freedom chant reflecting struggle history.

On Tuesday in Parliament where Ramaphosa attended to answer questions the EFF went ballistic and, of course, Malema got up and sang his “liberation song”. Cyril tried to shut him up and even threatened to have him arrested.

This past weekend Malema was at it as usual when he slammed Ramaphosa for painting SA as a crime hub. Does Cyril not know how many murders we have in this country every single day.  Add to that the robberies, car heists and everything else that our gangs of unemployed criminals do and he would see it’s not surprising at all to call South Africa a crime hub.  And please don’t forget to add the we have a weak, weak, understaffed police force and a Prosecution  Authority that is embarrassingly (if not almost totally) ineffective.

Last week Julius Malema got a serious klap from our courts. He was appealing a judgement in a case where the EFF were fined R500,000-00

and he was found guilty of defaming the Ethics Committee of Parliament and former Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel for appointing Edward Kieswetter as head of our Revenue Services (SARS).  He was told to apologise. He hasn’t…..but now he must.

This action of his in the Western  Cape High Court was dismissed as having no merit. 

Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now has been busy this week. I have picked up several articles that he has had published. First, I want to air his comments about unemployment published in Business Day on Monday.

Here I quote “It is the GNU’s duty to proactively address the desire of people to have jobs, dignity and a better life.” In the same article he points out that criminality is rampant in our country but crime goes unaddressed by the under resourced and ill-trained police.

His article is a sound warning to the members of the GNU to get off their bums and start doing something.

Then Paul Hoffman has a full go at Ramaphosa exposing him for telling half-truths and being duplicite. Ramaphosa convolutes facts deliberately making out as if SA is a wonderful place for investors, quoting facts that have been distorted knowing full-well that criminality and corruption added to the lack of policing does the opposite of attracting investors. 

When Hoffman writes about B-BEE he points out that all it has achieved is enrichment of ANC cadres and their friends in business. Ramaphosa is liar and a cheat.

The DA & AfriForum have challenged the B-BEEE law by separately challenging it it court.    Watch this space.

There is a view that Ramaphosa is personally liable for the massive unemployment and on-going crime in our country because he is the boss but he simply does nothing to address any of the country’s problems. He sits on his hands and smiles,

He did nothing to stop State Capture when was Deputy President under Jacob Zuma for five years and now he simply smiles and giggles when America’s Trump threatens to reverse our very necessary trade terms that have been in place for years. I am disappointed in him. He really is a wuss.

Are you aware that every hour in SA nearly three people get murdered or that on average every day 139 people are raped!  These statistics come from The Daily Friend’s column on Tuesday.   No wonder the brave, outspoken Rob Hersov dislikes Ramaphosa so much. 

A story that has made much news here this week is all about Minister Solly Malatsi (DA in the GNU) Minister of Communications and Digital Technology, one day before the Oval Office meeting, attempted to change  the BB-BEEE (Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment) laws to accommodate Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite business operating in SA.  BB-BEEE is one of 142 racial laws favouring blacks ahead of whites applicable in SA today.  This law as it stood,  before this proposed intervention would have meant that Elon Musk would have had to give at least 30% of the shares in his Starlink company to blacks. Elon won’t do that. BB-EEE is costing us money and costing us jobs and it must go, but the ANC insist that after Apartheid they need transformation. 

Malatsi was in Parliament on Tuesday and took flack for his idea of  changing BB-EEE to making Musk invest 30% of the value of his Starlink company into SA rather than give 30% of the shares in Starlink to blacks. Malatsi took flak from several parties and some of the EFF we’re chucked out of the House. Could this idea of his, which is so necessary for our country break the already fragile GNU? 

This cartoon showing Malatsi cowering to Musk from Brandan appeared in Business Day this week:

I wasn’t surprised to read that Coronation Fund Managers is bracing itself for outflows as our savings and investment industry shrinks.

Yesterday the Auditor General gave Cape Town a clean audit.  We are the only city in the country to get that result. Unbelievable!

 I’m pleased to tell you that the football season in England is over. For Tottenham Hotspur fans it has been a year to forget. Our team lost again on Saturday when the last round, with all the Premiership sides competing at the same time, ended. Now I can relax for a while and pray that the Spurs team that comes out next season is not the same as this year. Spurs weren’t terrible, but they were just not good enough.

As always,

Gerald