The Week That Was

Gerald Potash

Hello again

Cyril’s presence at the Zondo Commission into State Capture was a huge disappointment. He was called as the very last witness after three years of the gathering of evidence into the corruption that has so decimated this country under the watch of Accused No 1 and with the compliance of the ANC and so many of its cadres. So, what did the President say?…… I don’t recall, I don’t remember, I was not party to any corruption, he evaded and he sidetracked. Popo Molefe, former head of Transnet and no fan of CR said that Ramaphosa appeared to be reciting poems that he had rehearsed. 

Cyril was head of several of the oversight committees of the Party, he was Deputy President for 5 years under Zuma, he sat in on all the decisions taken and his excuse to a direct question from Judge Zondo why he remained silent was that he had five choices (he recited each one like a rehearsed poem) and he said that he chose to stay shtum so that he could later make a difference. Then how could he tell the Judge that he knew nothing—if he decided to keep quiet?

He also came close to directly lying or else he is extremely forgetful. When’s asked about ANC cadre appointments to the bench of the Constitutional Court (illegal!)— he answered that there were no minutes kept of those meetings. It does just not seem possible that minutes were not kept when so much was going on. Minutes were certainly kept before and directly after CR’s chairmanship. Judge Zondo looked at Ramaphosa and told him that that sounded highly improbable. Were those “ minutes” deliberately destroyed?

When Cyril took over from JZ we desperately needed a leader that would save SA. But he is a wus and this country could have been a lot different with a strong leader to lead after the oh so weak and so pliable Jacob Zuma.  This is how Rico saw his performance at the Zondo Commission.

Cyril just goes on and on disappointing. Another senseless appointment. The disgraced Minister of State Security, dropped from the Cabinet after the failed insurrection last month, has been given a promotion to the even more important (and better paid) job of Speaker of Parliament. It is lamentable how cadre deployment is so very relevant to the President and how little he is able to exercise common sense. Can this woman, who is tainted up to her eyes in corruption and malfeasance be the only person he could think of to perform this important job? This appointment really illustrates how very strong the Party is and how being a loyal cadre is all that matters in achieving government position.

Several startling and extremely depressing figures were revealed this week. Unemployment, Murders and teenage pregnancies made headlines this week and none of these stories is pleasant.

Teenage pregnancies in Gauteng (Transvaal, to you) alone were  23,226 in the period April 2020 and March 2021 while girls between 10 and 14 years of age gave birth to just less than 1000 babies. These young girls will most likely remain in poverty while almost all of the boys and men will get away without any consequence whatsoever.

Where are the schools to teach these kids about sex? Our education system is rated worst of all countries rated and it is so apparent. Where are the parents? We know that too many kids grow up in fatherless homes. But where are the police to charge adults/ young men for rape? Sex with an under 16 year old is a crime in this country.

An issue often overlooked is almost all of those girls will be receiving welfare grants from the (bankrupt) government until they are 18. Cyril, it’s not sustainable. What are you doing about it?

A total of 9 518 rape cases were reported for the period January to March 2021in Gauteng. You know that these figures are nowhere near the real number of rapes. This is the one crime that is never properly reported for the very obvious reasons.
 

Then the murder figures for the first quarter of the year record 5701 people murdered. That is just not normal in any society. These birth and murder stats more than almost any other are a blight on this country. The lack of decent policing adds to the lack of consequence sending the murder figure up almost every quarter, it is deeply concerning.

And still the Chief of Police and the mad-hatter, the Minister of Police (every single time he is photographed he is wearing a different hat; he must own hundreds) remain in their positions doing what they have always done……..very little.

Cyril, get rid of them, they are useless and please appoint competent people! This cartoon from the fist days of our lockdown which is now well over 520 days shows how Zapiro saw The President, Defence Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqabule —who is now Speaker of the House—and the Police Minister, Bheki Cele 18 months ago:

Our unemployment figures were released this week….. ouch! Here there is big, B I G trouble on the way.

The most frightening part is not that 11.9 million people are not working it is that 2 out of 3 young people are neither working nor studying nor even looking for a job. These new figures are shocking, with another increase expected for the third quarter that will include the riots as well as the third wave of Covid-19.

Bloomberg has indicated that we have the highest unemployment in the world.

Cyril do something, quickly!

On Monday troops were out and police visible in the hot spots of the last insurrection in KZ-N and Gauteng. Thankfully the threatened chaos did not repeat and calm prevailed. But it was hardly business as usual with many of the stores closed; shopkeepers being too frightened to have a repeat performance of what happened last month. 

In the meantime Cyril’s bravado after last month’s chaos telling us that they knew who the instigators of the insurgence were and that they would soon be arrested has come to …….nothing. Are you surprised?

Some good news. Big shots are at last being charged and some (not quite so big) have already landed in jail.

The ultimate sour puss in our country, Bathabile Dlamini the former minister of Social Development and still head of the ANC’ s Women’s League is being charged with lying under oath.

The Director of Public Prosecutions in Gauteng has decided to criminally prosecute her (Bathabile Dlamini) for perjury.

The charges relate to her testimony during an inquiry which the Constitutional Court instituted into her role in the 2017 social grants crisis.

Is anyone in the ANC clean?

Yesterday it was learnt that Dlamini has tested positive for Covid and is in hospital. We wish her a speedy recovery.

What is deeply concerning is how slowly the NPA is reacting to the work investigating journalists like Pauli van Wyk have done. Whereas many of the officials of VBS bank have been criminally charged for looting the political culprits, like Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu go on living the high life with the money stolen from the poor. The trace and track has been done. Pauli has followed the money. She has written it all up and we have read, with disgust, what the EFF leaders have done with it, what they have bought and where they spent it. So why no arrests?

Accused No 1 now in jail, or rather now in hospital, still makes news every week.

Zuma’s military doctors failed to report on his state of his health for his mystery illness by Monday, as required by the Court, and the State has rejected their reasons for being delinquent, what now?

Then Accused No 1’s lawyers have written to the ANC requesting their financial records, which according to JZ  will exonerate him from having benefitted from the Arms deal. It was the ANC that benefitted from the corrupt deal according to him. Oh, it’s taken him just more than 15 years to say so!

Who knows how long Zuma will be in hospital; my guess is until his jail sentence has run its course. Then I expect he will walk out of hospital with a broad smile. 

The Jacob Zuma Foundation (a tax free institution that is registered as a Public Benefit Organization) is pleading for donations to help Accused No 1 pay his legal fees. The State is demanding payment of the R16 million that he owes for legal costs and he says he has no money. I have a suggestion: Ask your son, Duduzane, who became a billionaire sitting at the feet of the Guptas to help you. He has plenty of money.

The question is— if Zuma doesn’t pay can the State attach and sell Nkandla? No easy answer because Nkandla is on Zulu Trust land.

Cyril was also in the news this week because he is suing our Public Prosecutor for perjury. He claims that she lied under oath in court by drafting a report wherein she states that he lied about campaign funds when he was contesting the leadership of the ANC and the State. This perjury case is a complicated matter that has to do with the PP applying for rescission of a judgement against her with costs.

This case could be fun. Watch this space.

In court yesterday was Ace Magashule, appealing his sentence for not being restored as Sec Gen of the ANC. Typically his Counsel, Adv Dali Mpofu, the EFF heavyweight, went ballistic and accused the same judges who presided in the original matter that they were biased against his client without giving one shred of evidence that they were. I don’t think that is a good way to try to get a court to overturn an earlier judgement.

Other news flashes from yesterday 

Judge Hlophe, Judge President of the Western Cape is to be recommended to Parliament to be impeached. More to follow next week.

The financial manager of the Health Dept of Gauteng was assonated in her car after dropping her kid at school. She wanted clean governance and was a whistleblower..…was due to give evidence in a corruption trial where officials are implicated……

The Proteas left for their tour of Sri Lanka yesterday but it was touch and go whether Mark Boucher, their coach, would accompany the team. There has been a serious enquiry into racism in the national cricket camp and Boucher has been very directly figured for calling Paul Adams a “little brown s**t”. Not nice. Boucher has apologised and made a statement but his affidavit to the Cricket Social Justice Commission has not been leaked.

Then to make matters worse Boucher’s assistant coach, Enoch Nkwe, did not accompany the team. He has pulled out because of raised concerns about the functioning and culture of the team environment.

As you can imagine there are strong calls for Boucher to be replaced.

The two rugby tests against Argentina were different. It the first test the Springboks sparkled, in the second they did what they had to do and overcame an ill-disciplined opposition. Rapport, the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper called it that the Springboks won, but in third gear. Two wins after the hard British and Irish Lions tour and our Boks are looking good.

New Zealand has stopped all games there and Australia has few venues still available with the pandemic spreading there too, but all the future games in this competition will be played in Australia .

Spurs are lucky. They were lucky to be awarded a penalty and they were lucky to have won 1-0. Not a good performance and I almost felt sorry for the opposition. The new manager, Nuno, has work to do.

As always, love to all,

Gerald