We've heard it before, but does it become truer the more times you say it…

Has anyone been keeping count on how many times, and how many different ANC-government members have said that nationalization of the mines is not government policy?

I don’t expect anyone to have kept count, but it’s been very frequent, and it’s aroused my suspicion that something’s afoot. Methinks the government doth protest too much.

The latest in a long line of statements designed to allay the possible doubts created in the minds of investors comes from the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan. All these protestations comes in the wake of the ANC Youth League’s exuberant ignorance getting the better of them once again, when they called for nationalisation of the mines.

It just leaves one wondering why there has been the repeated attempts to make the motives of government clear, as if it was not articulated clearly enough, the first few times. And do the puppeteers in the ANC who pull the strings of the government frontmen, think that they have not done a good job in keeping the hounds of investigative journalists at bay, up to this point?

Do they sense that all the other naysayers might not have had sufficient credibility, and have thus unleashed probably the only person in government who still has it in relative abundance?

Hmmmm…sniff sniff…

A long walk to fiefdom

I just thought that while I’m on a political ranting roll this evening, I might as well slip this one in; it’s been bothering me since I read the ugly news.

While Nelson Mandela had a truly long walk to freedom, the new ANC-government under the leadership (sic) of Jacob Zuma has just completed its long walk to fiefdom. Yes, the ANC-government has truly arrived, to claim its prize, formerly known as South Africa.

Figures released for questionable government expenditure of public funds, in the opposition Democratic Alliance’s Wasteful Expenditure Monitor makes your eyes water, or makes you lick your lips in glee, depending on which side of the political fence you’re luxuriating in:

• R99-million on upgrades to the residences of public officials
• R120,5-million on a variety of items, including unnecessary rental space, luxury cars and artwork
• Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu spent about R7-million on four Mercedes-Benz vehicles
• The total spent on new vehicles by Zuma’s government was now R65,8-million
• The total spent on parties, conferences and similar events now totalled R209-million
• World Cup tickets by Cabinet members, municipalities and state-owned enterprises: R135,9-million
• The state has also spent R209-million on parties and conferences, and a further R241-million on “unnecessary property rentals, hotel stays and property renovations. This included the R515 000 spent by Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda on “prolonged stays” at luxury five-star establishments, including Cape Town’s Mount Nelson and Twelve Apostles hotels, which the ANC defended as “within the limits specified in the Minister’s Handbook.”

That’s just for starters. It gets worse better; let’s check what’s on the main course. Recent reports that loudmouth ANC-Youth League President Julius Malema had managed to convince the ruling-ANC government to consider nationalization of mines, was meant only for consumption by the utterly gullible followers of this absurd organization. It’s pretty certain that the nationalization of mines has been on the ANC-government agenda all along; they just needed this fool and his ignorant followers to give it life, to make it appear as if coming from the people, rather than initiated by the greedy government.

We all know, that a fiefdom needs money-spinning operations to make it that more attractive, and since they’re depleting the other sources of revenue at an astonishing rate, the mines are really a no-sweat grab; ask Robert Mugabe.

Now how about some dessert? Why not reward some of your cronies who came to dinner bearing bottles of Veuve Clicquot and Johnny Walker Blue, with some choice appointments (otherwise known as cadre deployment), to some of our finest state-owned utilities; to do with as they please. After all, what is a fiefdom, if you can’t own, and fuck up everything at will.

Boy, are the serfs in for a surprize when they finally wake up!

Apartheid resurrected to become the tool of the liberator

South Africa’s first all-inclusive democratic elections in 1994, sounded the death knell of apartheid, or so we thought…

More than 15 years later, a country that was on course to buck the trend of liberated African countries, and become a thriving democracy, is now being manipulated by unscrupulous people to create artificial racial tension, in what appears to be a scheme to divert attention away from the real problems.

It all started so well, with the ANC liberating us from years of racial separation and dis-unity; taking over the governing of the country that became known as the rainbow nation. Those years of hope and expectation now seem like so long ago; the rainbow nation now seems to be just a rainbow notion. The ANC has led us into what appears to be a dead-end; from the death of apartheid to the death of democracy.

It would off course be dishonest to not acknowledge the many positive and beneficial changes that the ANC government has brought to South Africa. Most of these changes were effected in the early years, but most of the benefits are still evident to this day. The first truly democratic constitution drawn up with the guidance of the early ANC leadership, embodied ideas that were the envy of established democracies around the world. Then things changed; contempt for this document by its own architects, became all too apparent. What went wrong?

The answer is very simple: the leadership of the ANC went wrong. As the leadership became infatuated with power, and their own self-importance, their greed and arrogance grew in leaps and bounds. While their need to display their new-found wealth and power became more ostentatious, the most striking characteristic of the ANC leadership became the utter disdain for their own supporters and the gross arrogance when confronted with criticism, however mild, towards everyone else, including the world. In time, the party became more important than the country, and it was inevitable that they would declare themselves above the law, as they so often do.

Even though they exhibited this abysmal behaviour, the support from the vast majority of their followers did not seem to wane. How was this possible? Evidently the people did not in their wildest dreams suppose that such behaviour was possible from their liberators, or even if they did, preferred to not even consider it likely, or were not aware of such behaviour, which seems unlikely. A more plausible reason would appear to be that they are being manipulated into believing that their leaders are still pure and trustworthy.

Before we proceed, I would like to point out that I am not stringing together a conspiracy theory, although it may well look like it. I am putting together some thoughts that have been with me for some time now from observation, and seems to be corroborated by others as well.

The ANC leadership have for some time now displayed no will to govern the country in a manner befitting publically elected officials. They have adopted a style of leadership which closely resembles that of common dictatorships, although they have not entirely succumbed to that base level yet. Their inability to govern is manifest in the arrogant manner in which they approach everything to do with government.It’s also evident from the growing discontent of the people in poor towns across the country, where service delivery has all but ground to a complete standstill, and elected officials raid the coffers to line their own pockets.

The only reason, the people have not revolted yet, is because they are being told that all the ills of the country is the result of apartheid. Yes, the self-same apartheid that was supposedly killed more than 15 years ago. The ANC leadership have found a convenient scapegoat for their ineptitude; they have resurrected apartheid.

They have resorted to using structures such as the ANC Youth League to spread disinformation about apartheid’s apparent influence from the grave over the efforts of the ANC to govern (sic), and also to demonize institutions of wealth generation such as the mines, by calling for their nationalization. While they have repeatedly stated that nationalization is not a government policy, their feeble protestations is not at all convincing to all of us who have witnessed their constant raiding of the treasury. In private, they must surely be licking their lips with glee at the thought of this new source of wealth.

It’s all too obvious that the ANC leadership does not want apartheid to die – they need it desperately to hang onto the tenuous grip they have on power. It’s also obvious that to remain in power, they need a constant source of poor, preferably uneducated (but more so, ignorant) people to vote for them.

The elaborate scheme to mislead has probably been taken much further: attention is being deliberately drawn away from government incompetence by buffoons such as Julius Malema who goes around inciting violence and instigating racial hatred by making inflammatory speeches, devoid of truth or intelligence.

Is our liberation at an end? Maybe not entirely, but it’s only a matter of time…