The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again

Spineless Cyril was at it again last week when he suspended (not fired) the Police Commissioner, who has been giving damning evidence at the Madlanga Commission. He incriminated not only himself but several other top shots, as well.

Since George Fivaz, our first police chief of the “new era” appointed by Nelson Mandela, every single police chief has had to be fired. As you can see corruption in the ANC and particularly in their choice of police, is endemic.

The Mandlanga Commission which is investigating facts around alleged wrongdoing or maladministration in specific matters like the SA Police (SAPS) is doing sterling work. We now have our top cop and our police minister suspended but we continue to pay their salaries because Cyril has no backbone.

What else made news this week was that the replacement for the suspended top cop, General Fannie Masemola, is a financial lady in SAPS. She is the CFO who has never served as a sergeant or even a constable. What does she know about policing?

At least and at last the crooked top cops are being removed even if it is on full pay.

Well, not all are yet removed. On Monday City Press reported on perjury charges hanging in the balance against deputy national police commissioner, Tebello Moskilli. She lied under oath and the SIU have been waiting since September for charges to be laid.

 Zapiro, in yesterday’s Daily Maverick gets it just right with his cartoon doesn’t he?

The  minister of Traditional Affairs and Cooperative Governance named cadre deployment as the primary cause of failure in SA. William Saunderson-Meyer, writing in his weekly opinion piece in the Citizen, refers to the research done by Prof William Gumede, of the Wits University School of Governance, and his attack on the ANC policy of B-BEEE. The policy meant to help poor blacks become economically active has helped a tiny, tiny ANC-connected group of cadres become incredibly wealthy. Instead of helping thousands and millions of poor people climb the economic ladder, about 46 people have become billionaires because of this policy. 

I feel sorry for Gumede who is being driven by a storm of politically connected activists determined to silence him. Apparently Ramaphosa is angry and has called Gumede a right-wing Afrikaaner stooge. (This from David Bullard’s article this week in Politicsweb).

Leon Schreiber is the young DA member in the GNU given the task of Minister of the Interior. This man takes no prisoners. After disciplinary hearings last week he got rid of 7 officials. He has now got rid of 95 members of his staff altogether since taking office in 2024. Schreiber says this weeks’ “resignations” form part of his effort to stamp out corruption and other unethical behaviour in his dept.

Oh, for more Schreibers in cabinet.

I also enjoyed reading about the split between the ANC and the Communist Party (SACP), which now seems to be official, after more than 32 years of trying hard to make SA a socialist state. The ANC’s threat to expel SACP members from government won’t win it any votes in upcoming elections.

Paul Hoffman, of Accountability Now, this week wrote a long, deep article about the current state of SA. In it he asks how much longer can SA tolerate poverty, starvation and non-delivery. Hoffman points out that too few have too much and too many have too little. Then he tells that in the rural areas too many poor infants die of starvation. Other youngsters develop life-long health challenges through not having had enough food. He blames the government and quotes the Chancellor of the Free State in his article “ ……the ANC has morphed into an organised crime syndicate……..because of their majority power”.

Monday was a public holiday here. It was Freedom Day, the day we all, for the first time, went to vote 32 years ago, in our very first democratic election.

Cyril, as is his want, made a Freedom Day speech this time in the Bloemfontein stadium. It was embarrassing due to the poor turnout. The ANC is losing support and it is showing all over the place.

I think this cartoon from Carlos in the latest Mail & Guardian sums up our current situation very well indeed:

The embarrassment with the quality in the cabinet just goes on and on. This week our Minister of the Dept.of Communications and Technology had to withdraw its draft Artificial Intelligence Act because most of the supporting sources of the document were fabricated.

Then this week we got to hear about Sisisi Tolashe, our Social Development cabinet Minister. She used our tax money to pay for a cleaner/nanny at her daughter’s home and made the cleaner give her daughter 50% of the money that she drew from government. I don’t make these stories up. 

There are over 500 registered political parties in SA. Almost 300 can take part in the General Elections while the other 200+ can battle it out for municipal and provincial seats. This is why people like Jonny Steinbeck believe that little parties are eating at the support-following of the larger parties. 

The truth is that very few of these parties really have much influence. Fewer than 20 parties have parliamentary representation.

An interesting article in Die Papier highlights the way in which the Coloured people are giving Gayton McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance Party support. McKenzie told that (new) newspaper to watch carefully after the next election to see how much of the “brown/coloured” vote both the ANC and the DA will have lost.
 Are our relations with the US thawing? On Monday Marco Rubio sent SAfrica this message “On behalf of the US, I extend warm greetings to the people of South Africa as you commemorate Freedom Day”.

This week my notable coffee catch-up was two breakfast and two lovely cups of coffee with Doug and Cassie. They are not often on their Stellenbosch farm but when they are here I enjoy our catch-ups. It is always stimulating and this week was no different. 

The coach was on the couch —-in fact he got to my couch several hours before me to watch the Stormers go top of the log in the United Rugby Championships by crunching Glasgow Warriors (who are now 2nd on the log) —while I was in Town at the Herring’s birthday party. I made it back in time to watch a lucky Spurs team sneak a 1-0 win against the bottom team in the log. Not a good performance and I can see Tottenham going down next season to the Championship League unless they improve radically in their remaining 4 games (which frankly doesn’t seem likely). Oh, dear.

As always,

Gerald