The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

Tuesday 30th June was marked as the deadline day for all unregistered foreigners to leave the country. It was the day of planned shutdowns and threats by certain organisations of violence unless they all left. Rian Malan, a writer, wrote a telling if long letter, published in Alec Hogg’s BizNews which summarised the situation here very well. He wrote, essentially that the foreigners are loyal, hard workers and they send their earnings home whereas our locals are lazy and unreliable but they expect the same rewards for much less effort.

Well, Tuesday came and we were ready. The whole country was alert. Police were fully engaged and warnings issued stressed to remain calm and to, as far as possible, avoid friction areas. We were asked not to use the N2 (our main highway into the city).

Thousands of foreigners went to rehabilitation centres all over the country to try to leave but there were simply too many to accommodate them all. One of the buses carrying Malawians back home from Pietermaritzberg crashed in the middle of the night, last night, when the driver fell asleep at the wheel. He was killed in the accident.

Our area remained reasonably calm but there were 4 deaths of foreigners by anti-immigration gangs and there was looting of some foreign-owned businesses. Thankfully nothing quite as bad as the 2021 riots when 378 foreigners were killed. 

Even CNN carried this story of the unrest with visuals of the gathered throngs of thousands  of protesters this morning in their news broadcast.

‘March and March’ the protest organisation wants the government to expel all undocumented foreigners and they threaten that they will protest every Thursday from now on until it happens.

This is my photo of the CNN news broadcast on my TV this morning: 

Tension between America and SA flared again last week when Ambassador Leo Boxell 111 commented on X about Deputy President, Paul  Mashatile’s visit to China while our Deputy Minister of International Relations hosted her Iranian counterpart here in Pretoria.

Bozell claims we are clawing to be non-aligned while rolling out the red carpet for deepening ties with regimes who murder their own citizens  and spread terrorism around the word. In answer to SA’s claim that we chose to be non-aligned the Ambassador answered that we can’t claim to be non-aligned when we court, so blatantly, America’s adversaries. Bozell highlighted that SA’s claims of non-alignment are dubious at best. 

Now you can see why America recently  suspended medical funding of $400 million per year for AIDS patients in SA.

There has been an explosion of opinions in the press after the sacking of John Steenhuisen from his post as Minister of Agriculture to a deputy Ministership by Geordin Hill-Lewis. Hill-Lewis has become the new leader of the DA and is forthright in his views. He believes that friendship must make way for competence and delivery and he fears that Steenhuisen has not delivered in that portfolio. Steenhuisen answered with an attack on Hill-Lewis saying that there was an agreement that he would give up the leadership but would retain his portfolio. Steenhuisen also attacked Tony Leon, a former (long-time) leader of the DA Party, whom he believes is behind this move. He believes Leon’s PR  company, Resolve Communications is behind his axing. The fight is ugly and it is not yet over so watch this space.

As you might have guessed, it took Cyril quite a little while to consider  the changes Hill-Lewis requested but as of today they have been signed off. What is certain, however, is that this spat is tearing the DA apart.
This is Rico’s view from Business Maverick of the affair:

While Cyril’s following Geordin’s instructions with regards to the cabinet shuffle drew little comment his bringing back a cereal liar and a dishonest former Minister back into the cabinet is a disgrace. Dina Pule was found to be guilty of unlawful and unethical conduct and was fired from her post in disgrace by then President Jacob Zuma in 2013. She was found to have misused State funds, lied about her lover, took him on multiple overseas trips with our money and was good at coercing companies for support. Former Public Prosecutor, Thuli Madonsela exposed her for what she is.

I ask you, what does her re-instatement to cabinet say about Cyril?

On Saturday Geordin Hill-Lewis was in Emfuleni, along with the locals raking up the rubbish in the streets of the Township where the DA won a key Gauteng ward. They took this township near Vereeniging and Evaton from the ANC which is a large black township where the voters are tired of ANC promises that don’t materialise.

This week there has been much press in the press about Starmer in the UK being booted-out by his Labour Party after their enormous victory at the polls just 2 years ago. Justice Malala, writing in the Financial Mail believes this will also happen here with Ramaphosa having to go and the ANC shrinking to becoming nothing  more than a minor party.

I was interested to read in an Afriforum release that whites own 21% of South Africa’s land, well below the regularly quoted 72%. 

The Sunday Tribune posted an article by Paul Hoffman SC of Accountability Now, setting out the problem with corruption in our country. Then his article was also presented by IOL in other of their publications.  Hoffman asks whether the President still fulfils his promises. If you are interested  you can read his piece by clicking on this link:    https://share.google/6qb53DKYuvnx5rA0s

On Monday Business Day carried just  one letter to the Editor. Again, it was Paul Hoffman setting out exactly why we need an independent chapter 9 institution, not connected to Parliament, to combat the plague of corruption in our country.

SA’s economy is not shrinking but growth is very weak. Economists have warned that global uncertainty, higher oil prices and weak domestic demand could slow growth even further later in the year.  This doesn’t help the unacceptability high unemployment figures.

Cape Town is getting another new airport. Situated on the West coast it will handle jets, helicopters and it will have a flying school.

Time Out has again chosen Cape Town as the world’s most beautiful city.

It’s hard to know how many people watched Bafana Bafana, after qualifying for the very first time, playing their very first knock-out match on Sunday night (our time). Millions, probably more than 20,000,000 watched the game on TV. The press were ecstatic in their build-up to the game . We lost in the dying minutes, almost in extra time. At the end, an exciting game where a single goal separated us from Canada. Canada were, like us, also first time qualifiers in the knock-out rounds of the competition. Reluctantly I must admit Canada did just deserve their win. 

Much excitement here for late Saturday afternoon when the Springboks take on England at Ellis Park. Our first rugby test match this season. Unfortunately the crowd maybe smaller than usual because of the high price of the tickets.

As always,

Gerald