The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

Dennis, that character of note is no more. He passed-on on Friday morning and he will be missed, sadly missed by very, very many. He was generous almost to a fault, loyal beyond imagination, and always cheerful and bright. When hearing of his passing I told Hilary, his wife that I have no words and this whole newsletter could be about him. About us. About his friends. About how our friendship started. About how he invited me to Lords to watch a cricket test with him when he hardly knew who I was, how he introduced me to his friends who then became my usual suspects, how we all became members of the Cape Town Press Club, how he was humorous and never ever complained. I was shocked by the news of his going so suddenly. Well, I still don’t have words but I have read two wonderful tributes to my ‘chjom’–a word that was uniquely his– one tribute from Lalarge at the Cape Town Press Club and one written by someone close to him at his old alma mater, Rondebosch Boys High School. Both made me nod my head in acknowledgment and both brought tears to my eyes. Dennis will be missed………………..I have no words.

The impeachment process of looking into the President’s actions after the Phala Phala robbery was slightly delayed because the ANC could not finalise its members to serve on the committee. It is of interest to note the division in the majority party to this motion.

Whereas most Party members are supporting Ramaphosa, ANC stalwart Tokyo Sexwale, once Premier of Gauteng and also a former cabinet minister who is now a successful businessman says blatantly that Cyril’s story is bull….t. He says that Cyril’s version of the money being left on the farm, for future purchases is “a cock & bull story”.   Sexswale wants Cyril to answer questions that will be put to him by the members of the committee, who are representative of almost every parliamentary party. The ANC has only 9 members out of 31 on the committee and are no longer in clear majority so things could turn tough for Cyril.  Will what Sexswale wants ever happen? We’ll soon see…….

As expected, and it didn’t take long, for Cyril to approach the Courts for his attempt at a delay in the proposed proceedings. He has challenged the earlier Judge’s report that he has a case to answer about the ongoings at his Phala Phala farm and he now argues that the authors of that report misread their mandate. Ramaphosa now wants the Court to set aside this request and to consider his impeachment as unlawful.

Doesn’t this remind you of Jacob Zuma’s stalingrading tactics?

In fact, Paul Hoffman of Accountabilty Now, in a well-crafted piece points out how similar Cyril’s actions are to his Presidential predecessor, Jacob Zuma. They both tend to place themselves above the law in spite of Section 96 of the Constitution, which strictly prohibits Members of the Cabinet (including the President) from exposing themselves to any situation involving the risk of a conflict between their official duties and private interests, or using their position to enrich themselves. So you must ask: What is the President doing running a farm for profit?

This is Siwela’s take, from the Citizen newspaper on Cyril trying to abandon his accountability:

The acting Police Minister, Firoz Cachalia is pleased to tell us that the murder rate has come down by almost 10% in the first quarter of the year. Why is he only the “acting Minister” because Cyril’s good buddy, Senzo Mchunu is still suspended as the Minister of Police while on full pay for almost a year, already. Cyril, the spineless one just can’t fire him.

But let’s get back to those murder figures. We now are down to 58 murders a day! That truly is shocking. When one compares the other figures revealed by Cachalia like rapes (109 a day!)  carjackings, kidnappings and cash-in-transit robberies one can see how dismally our police perform. The trouble is that too many of the police are involved in the crimes as has become so obvious from the Madlanga Commission now looking into criminality of the police. The figures released by Cachalia are disconcerting. 80% of the police budget gets spent on salaries and pensions and 7,500 police vehicles are broken and in state garages. 

We need a new government and a completely overhauled police force.

Two stories, repeatedly making the press here at the moment are the problem we have with illegal foreigners and Johannesburg’s lack of money. 

Illegal foreigners have recently agitated vigorously in Durban to be returned to their home countries. Xenophobia has caused very many of them to leave their local homes (mainly shacks) and sleep in front of the Durban City Hall. There have been similar protests in Cape Town and on the reef. Locals threaten the foreigners and want them out. The foreigners are industrious and our locals don’t appreciate that competition in the work-place. This week there was an urgent government-organised meeting of all interested parties in the Union Buildings and yesterday scores of Ghanaians cued to get onto a plane to take them back homm.

Illegals have been given until June 30 to register or face mass expulsion. Our porous borders are the cause of this problem. The press is warning that this tension could explode into a bitter war.

This is Brandan’s take on the situation from Business Day:

City Power, owned and run by the Johannesburg City Council controls most of the electricity supply in Johannesburg. It gets paid for what it supplies but it doesn’t pay Eskom. Eskom has now threatened to cut power supply to large parts of Jo-burg from June 2 unless it receives more than R6 billion, instantly. Johannesburg just doesn’t have the money……so……….watch this space.

The Johannesburg mayor, Dada Morero, says they are on top of things and have nothing to worry about. No wonder he was Mampara of the week, in the Sunday Times last week.

Helen Zille says the attention she receives from her opponents in the mayoral race in Johannesburg is actually helping her. She gets much more publicity because of it and she is sure that it is beneficial to her campaign.

A very worrying interview this week was organised by Alec Hogg of Biznews with the well-known economist Frans Cronje, who warned that the Rand (now at R16.37 =$) could fall to R50.00 to the US $ if SA chooses the wrong leader to run the country. Is that Cronje’s warning not to let Deputy President, Mashatile take over because he verily believes that Mashatile will bring the EFF & MK into the GNU rather than keeping the DA there.

If that happens it could be a disaster.

The Cape Town marathon is just a few steps short of being an official World Major Marathon. The weather on Sunday for the Cape Town race was perfect. Ten men broke the old race record and the fastest time for a marathon on the African continent was broken when Mohamed Esa, from Ethopia won the race in 2 hours  4 min and 55 secs. We just have to sort out a few formalities to be recognised as a “Major”; and then elite athletes from all over the world will be racing to compete here.

Thankfully, Tottenham Hotspur will still be playing in the Premiership next season. It wasn’t easy and while the coach, with me on the couch watching, we also watched our closest rivals to being relegated scored not once, not twice but thriceb. It was tense but Spurs hung on to win 1-0 and that was more than good enough to continue playing at the very pinnacle of football when the new season kicks off on the 22nd of August. 

As always,                                                                               

Gerald