The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

The ANC is in serious danger of being liquidated. Two court orders have appropriately gone against them in a case where they were sued for R104 million for not paying for advertising material. Both judgements also ruled that the ANC should pay the costs of frivolous court action and that attorneys fees and the sheriff fees must be included. They owe just more than R150 million. There now is a strong chance that assets will be sold from their Lethuli House offices and even their bank accounts are at risk of being liquidated to settle the debt.

If they are under liquidation at the time of the elections t`hey will not be permitted to take part.

So……..watch this space.

More than a third of ANC branches have failed to nominate candidates for the 2024 general election. The Party is going from bad to worse.

Could the Multi-Charter of opposition parties, made up of the DA, Inkata, Freedom Front Plus, Spectrum Nation, United Independence, African Christian Democratic, Independent SA National Civic Organisation and Action SA attract more votes together than the ANC? And why haven’t parties like Rise Mnansi and Build One SA joined the charter?

You might also like to know about Dudu Myeni (Zuma’s doll).

The SIU (Special Investigation Unit) has found ‘financial irregularities’ totalling R3.7 billion at SAA where she was Chair of the State Owned Enterprise. She is directly involved in this extravagant wastage of funds and corruption and we now wait for the NPA…….but that wait could be a long wait. Mind you this matter has already had a court hearing so hopefully it wont be too long before she sees the inside of a jail.

Brandan early in the week had this cartoon of the NPA chief rushing on a snail to finalise these Zondo Commission matters.

There is a good (bad) chance that Volkswagen, who have been here for almost 80 years, will leave SA. VW are one of the important car assembling firms that together make up almost 10% of our total exports.The reasons are pretty obvious; load shedding and poor logistics added to BEE, “poor policy” and things like the construction mafia who threaten that if they don’t get the contracts they are after, make SA far less attractive than other assembly countries. Thomas Schäfer, VW brand chief is very worried about the country’s ability to contribute meaningfully to his product.  He asks “why are we still here…..we are not in the business of charity”.

Then one must ask…..If VW leave will the other car manufacturers not follow?

A white CEO of Nedbank has just been appointed and already there are cries from black business which calls this a “missed opportunity” for transformation. The fact that Jason Quinn may well be the best person suited for the job has nothing to do with it as far as they are concerned.

Here police officers collude with gangsters. What could be worse than that? There has recently been a case where ‘Mr. X’ reported what he saw to a judge during a trial and the judgement confirms that what Mr X reported is true and accurate. The Daily Maverick has a detailed story of police “watching as spectators” as gangsters shot six people dead in the Cape Town suburb, Khayelitsha. This judge, Mr Thulare, also found in 2022 in a case where the notorious 28’s gang were involved, that gang syndicates have infiltrated senior police in certain areas.

How scary is that for whistle-blowers? And for us all?

Since April, 10 police officers per month have been shot dead. Surely this confirms what the Judge then found.

Crime now shaves 10% off our GDP according to Tony Leon in his (final) article for the Sunday Times, this past weekend.            

And Melanie Verwoerd has written her last article for News24.    

I will really miss both of their reporting.

In a hard-hitting editorial on the weekend The Citizen has a ‘go’ at Cyril Ramaphosa, Fikile (fix fokall) Mbalula,–the ANC Sec Gen who is the emptiest and noisiest barrel, and Supla Ramokgopa, our Min of Electricity. Ramphosa some time ago claimed ‘we have turned the corner’. Mbalula promised that load shedding would be over by the end of the year and the Min of Electricity admitted, as we plunged back into stage 6 outages (+10 hours a day) that we only had 36% power for consumers. The Citizen ends its editorial thus:

ANC, you are the weakest link.  Goodbye!

The editorial asks what is behind this catastrophic collapse of our state. Sabotage, looting, incompetence? Certainly all of those and more.

Let us hope & pray that SA votes to get the ruling party out of office. We really can’t tolerate any longer these empty barrels that only make loud noises.

Peter Bruce in the Sunday Times this week talks about the promises Cyril makes and his lack of follow-through. From the logistics at our ports (delaying trade worth R7 billion a day and costing jobs) to his promising that heads would roll at Transnet. Bruce verily believes that there could be a government change after the election. Here’s hoping.

I am a fan of William Saunderson-Meyer. This week he has a full “go” at our Police Minister, Bheki Cele, who lauded the police when the murder rate for the last quarter decreased by 0.8%. Can you believe that this is considered meaningful by this government?  That is a meager percentage and is meaningless when crime spirals and becomes more brazen with armed robberies up by 45%.  Saunderson-Meyer also writes about the truck highjackings and the kidnappings (often of very “ordinary” people) for money. Then the writer points out that we spend R3.3 billion a year to protect our Ministers. That is disgusting. Especially since the Protection Unit is useless.

Load shedding hit us badly again this week and having lights out for more than 10 hours a day is irritating and costly. In spite of promises the outlook even for next month is not good. Zapiro captured last week well in this cartoon yesterday in Daily Maverick:

Cricket SA is probing the pro-Israel comments made by 18 year old David Teeger. Teeger is head-boy of King Edward VII school and a wonderfully talented cricketer who will likely captain the SA Under 19 team next year…. That is if he is not punished by Cricket SA. He made his remarks while receiving the ABSA Rising Star award.

What has a youngster’s view got to do with his cricketing ability?

Oscar Pistorius received a repreve from jail and will come out on the 5th of January. This news made headlines all over the world and I read about it on both CNN and Sky as it scrolled across the screen while watching news of the Israeli hostages being freed. He has several tough conditions to adhere to and apparently he has put on lots of weight and will probably not be running anymore.

Yesterday was Robin’s birthday and the usual suspects, sans Paul, met at the scenic Constantia Glen for lunch. Henry and that character of note, Dennis were there and so was Kenny and as that character always asks when we are together, are we having a JFT? (Jolly Fine Time). The answer is YES.   

The weekend saw the running of the Trail-run Cape Town. The RMB Ultra-Trail Cape Town is a highlight for local runners and draws people from around the world. A huge success was spoiled by three athletes getting mugged, by three youngsters, the oldest holding a gun. One participant lost his phone, his watch and R45,000. Fortunately no one was hurt and the race went on. 

On Sunday the coach was on the couch with me to watch the football. Spurs started well and were unlucky not to be more than 1-0 at half time. Son scored three times but everytime he was ruled off side. Poor finishing cost Spurs as Aston Villa scored twice. Oh, Harry we miss you!

As always,                                                                              

Gerald