The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

For me one of the main news stories of this week was about the recent poll substantiating last week’s DA poll, showing a dramatic loss of support for the ANC. This latest poll corroborates the DA’s showing that support for the ANC is now not more than 29%. This recent study by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection shows that support for the ANC is rapidly eroding.  According to this Institute the ANC is likely to only keep a majority in 2 of our 9 provinces in the next election.

The poll attests to a big loss from the ANC’s 40% support at the last General Election, where they also had then came down from 57% support in the election before that one.

What I didn’t enjoy learning was the opinion that there are cadres in both the ANC and in Zuma’s MK Party who are trying to get those two Parties to come together again. That is a scary thought.

Jacob Zuma’s political party, MK is in deep financial trouble. They are R28 million in debt. The MK auditor claims that it is all Floyd Shivambu’s doing. Shivambu, the MK’s former Secretary-General, who was for so long Julius Malema’s No 2 in the EFF, avers that R7 million a month is being syphoned from the Party by certain of its members. This story is still running.

Julius Malema, who is barred from entering the United Kingdom was in Nigeria last week, where he called for a “United Àfrica”. He wants one parliament, one currency (he is anti US $) and one military for the whole of our continent.

 Last Wednesday Malema was found guilty of hate speech for inciting violence by our Equality Court.  He was found guilty of urging his supporters to “never be scared to kill” and urged them to go after white people, racists. Cited in the judgement is this quote from Malema to his EFF audience “All white people are criminals; all white people must be driven into the sea, and any whites who remain must be killed……..it is an institutional decision.” He told his audience that he was prepared to kill.

Now we await the punitive sentence……so watch this space.

I am frustrated that we must still learn how wasteful our government employees (Cabinet Ministers) are. I’m more than frustrated. I’m angry. The front page story of the Sunday Times this past weekend was all about how our government officials blew millions of Rands on a trip to New York. Our top Social Worker, a Cabinet Minister booked herself into one of New York’s priciest 5-star hotels for two weeks, and this lady was one of 82 SA delegates to attend the UN Commision on the Status of Women. Her cost alone to the SA tax-payer was way more than R1 million.

No sooner had the story hit the press than the spokesperson for the Dept. of Social Welfare was suspended for her alleged leaking of the story to the newspapers. This accused had previously worked for the Sunday Times and City Press. She disputes that she leaked the story.

Has the Minister herself been cautioned about her excessive spend?………..Don’t be silly.

William Saunderson-Meyer in his column in the Citizen on Monday points out how Ramaphosa is as guilty as Zuma in deferring accountability. The outburst from Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi in KZN about our police having been infiltrated by criminal factions has elicited a commission of enquiry from Cyril. But this commission hasn’t got off the ground yet because the Judicial Dept is putting spokes in the wheel of transparency. They are stalling and not only is there not yet a venue available but neither has the necessary equipment, to get the show on the road been supplied. Saunderson-Meyer ends his piece by pointing out that under Cyril’s watch the ‘capture’ of SA has not been checked, instead it has deepened and broaden. Ramaphosa is allowing Zuma’s excesses to escalate.

Job-losses have become news again. The Ford motor Co is letting almost 500  hundred people go and Arcelormittal, the gigantic steel company has made known that it is to reduce its workforce by at least 3,500. We already have 42% of the work force unemployed.

How many people now becoming workless do those workers support? We have become the country with the highest unemployment figures in the world. That is a title not to proud of.

What the ANC have cost this country is immeasurable and they take no blame. This cartoon, showing the Sec-Gen and the President of the ANC is from Siwela in Tuesday’s Citizen. I think you will agree that hits the nail on the head:

The SA Communist Party (SACP) has kicked Gwede Mantashe, a very long-time supporter of Cyril Ramaphosa and currently our mining Minister, who also serves as the Chairman of the ANC, off their Central Committee. Apparently, he skipped too many meetings. 

We can all see that these two parties are not getting on well with each other; hence the Communists, for the first time will contest the next election, not as part of the ANC, but under their own banner.

Cyril was in Zimbabwe last week to open their annual Agricultural Show. In his opening address he praised the Zim government for taking farms from white farmers and giving those farms to blacks. We can all see what their BEE has done to that country! ……….but Cyril thinks it’s praiseworthy. The DA has criticised Cyril’s speech as whitewashing the enormous economic disaster that is Zimbabwe today.

Politicsweb this week had several interesting articles. Paul Hoffman’s piece on the lack of government action against corruption was to the point. David Bullard spoke about new religions begining, showing that the ANC is not one. Then two articles showing the bias against Israel by our press (Daily Maverick and the SABC) illuminated the stance our Government. 
 

I had two stimulating luncheon dates this week. The first was on Friday at the Press Club.

I hadn’t been to a CT Press Club talk for quite a while. So it was lovely to catch-up with some of the usual suspects for lunch at the behest of that character of note, Dennis, who arranged the gathering. Hilary came along with her spouse. Henry was there and Winston brought along a friend, Leon and the acclaimed rugby journalist, Dan Retief was also at our table. We were all there to listen to Jeff Wicks, the investigative journalist talk about the last 4 years that he has been investigating the death of the whistleblower, Babita Deokoran. Wicks is young, brave and eloquent and he spoke about how he has managed to fit together many of the pieces that led to Deokoran’s being murdered in her motorcar after dropping off her teenage daughter at school four years ago.  

What became absolutely clear from the talk, and the questions Wicks answered after he had finished, was that our police are incompetent and many of them are embroiled in criminal syndicates. That is one of the very serious problems that so bedevil our society.

Wicks has written a book, The Shadow State in which he explores the assassination of Deokoran and exposes the dark side of corruption in our country. This is my photograph of Wicks last Friday:

On Sunday Ivan & Rene came for lunch. They took Aliyah (emigrated to Israel) from Stellenbosch 46 years ago. But they regularly come back and it was just lovely to catch up with them again. 
 

On Tuesday our men’s cricket team, the Proteas, annihilated the England team in the first ODI at Headingly. Good!  

Our lady’s Springbok rugby team has made it into the quarter-finals of the Rugby championships for the first time. There has been much celebrations and press here on how well they are playing. They are also now ranked, for the first time, in the top 10 in the world. Very good!

On Saturday afternoon the coach was where he usually is on a Saturday afternoon. Together we watched Spurs lose to Bournemouth. Spurs were terrible and we deserved to lose. At one stage the commentators said that the “Cherries” had had 17 shots at goal and Spurs at that point had had 1. Our team was awful.

As always, 
Gerald