The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again

As expected Ramaphosa made his ‘Fellow South Africans’-New Years’ speech. When the radio station crossed to him, for the first minute or so there was nothing but silence and that turned out to be the very best part of his address. To congratulate SA, as he did, on what has been achieved in 30 years of ANC rule is pure hogwash. What the ANC has cost us would have been more appropriate. We have no Post Offices, we have no regular running rail services, we have no decent state schooling, we have the most congested ports in the world where containers ships now simply sail past. We have no regular electricity (OK you knew that), we have dismal heath services, (you knew that, too) and we have no regular water supply to too many suburbs, where we also have poor waste collection. In far too many towns rubbish just lies for all to see due to incompetence and/or corrupt town councillors. We have uncaring administration services with lazy, incompetent staff……is it necessary to go on?

The economy is on its knees, unemployment is amongst the very highest in the world, while criminality runs rife in the police force which is embarrassingly ineffective. Do you want more? A few more than 4000 police officers have criminal records. 

Then 4000 State employees are illegally doing business with the State but………….nothing happens!

SA under this government is a shambles.

All of the above worked well under the Nationalist government but you dare not tell that to an ANC cadre. They believe corruption ruled the roost then…….but it does now and the difference is that now nothing works. 

It is impossible not to recognize what a dismal failure the government is yet Ramaphosa went out of his way to express his pride with the great strides made since 1994.

This is Rico’s cartoon from last week in Business Maverick which so poignantly shows how the voters feel about ANC promises: 

Ramaphosa in his speech did not miss the opportunity to lambaste Israel for reacting to Hamas terror. You see the ANC is anti-Israel and that makes them anti-Semitic and it is getting harder and harder not to see that time for us in this country is running out. This is a nation so clearly racist where the governing party is so visibly anti-white notwithstanding the Constitution that becons everyone citizens to live as full and equal citizens.  This government has appriated all the rights it can and showered extravagant wealth on the few close to control.

Both the Chief Rabbi, Dr Warren Goldstein and the National Spokesperson of the SA Zionist Federation, Rolene Marks had full “goes” at Ramaphosa and the government after that appalling speech. Will that help? I doubt it.

But the Israeli government then in turn came out to berate SA for their reporting of Israel to the International Court of Justice for their actions in Gaza. Not a word about the ghastly Hamas provocation that caused this reprisal.

Israel will now appear before the ICJ on the 11th and 12th of January.

Not surprisingly Israel is hopping mad and will retaliate claiming that SA will be forever tarnished as playing the devil’s advocate. SA openly aligns itself with the perpertrators of the Oct 7 massacre and Israel believes that history will judge SA harshly and without mercy.

From all their actions it has been clear for a long time that SA is speedily isolating itself from the Western World by supporting terrorists and dictators. 

Making lots of noise in a usually quiet time for politics, is Jacob Zuma. He has ‘left’ the ANC and joined the new MK (Umkhonto weSizwe)political Party. Mondli Makanya writing in City Press this weekend referred to him as a pesky dirty fly, regurgitating his bad news stories as a fly regurgitates bad food & unhygienic junk.

It is clear that Zuma has lots of support in his home province of KZN and I am hoping that he gets a lot of support from them in the election (May, 22?) That will help diminish the support that the ANC is hoping for.

Talking of the election;  For the first time in 30 years the ANC is not heading into the elections as a foregone conclusion to be the winner head and shoulders above the other contesting parties.  Whether their support will drop so dramatically that they won’t be a major player in forming a government is very unlikely, unfortunately. But the latest polls show a very significant drop of support for the ruling party. The average poll, at this stage shows a 39% following which is a long way down from the 57% the ANC polled at the last election. And even further from the 66% they attained in the first democratic electionn in 1994.

I enjoyed this cartoon inThe Daily Friend on Monday:

hat character of note, Dennis organised tickets for all of the usual suspects to join him on the stand to watch the final cricket test against India at Newlands. All were present, some with wives and even the coach came with me. Mind you Henry had his wife and his sister-in-law with him  What a JFT we all had. But it would have been better had the Proteas not collapsed dramatically and got themselves out for their lowest test score ever, 55. India also created a record when their last six batsmen were out for no score. What a test match!

During the test, Paul sitting next to me showed me a traffic warning message he received on X : Cape Town–Newlands. Extremely busy between pitch area and the dressing room.

The test continues and we hope to be back tomorrow to watch Day 3. 

Spurs, after having been thrashed on Thursday evening picked up their socks and had a good win at home, in pouring rain in front of an energetic crowd on Sunday. It’s not easy being a Spurs fan. You have to learn to take the pain.

As always,                                                                                          

Gerald