When overzealous politicians go South

The South African (ANC) government has introduced some neat legislation over the course of twenty years which most people are happy with. Over recent years however, they seem hell-bent on tipping the scales with a plethora of mind-numbingly dumb laws, such as The Protection Of Information Bill.

Recently the idiot politicians (beats the hell out of me why they are referred to as lawmakers) in charge of Home Affairs, dreamt up some silly rules to govern Immigration, among other things. Journalist Peter Delmar of Times Live has written a very witty column about it, and because I could not in my wildest dreams have said it better, I’ve decided instead to steal it whole and post it here. I’m sure he won’t mind.

Impressionable minds at the Department of Home Affairs have been watching too much CNN.

People over there have got it into their heads that the name of the department sounds a lot like the US’s Department of Homeland Security. And so now, all of a sudden, we have a Department of Home Affairs that is obsessed with security.

If you’re a foreigner married to a South African, congratulations: we really are the very nicest people in the world to be married to. Too bad, though, that you will have to go back to wherever it is you came from to prove that you really are you – even if you’ve been living in this country for years, happily producing broods of little half-South Africans.

If you’re, say, a rocket scientist, a bio-molecular astrophysicist, or a newspaper columnist (one of those scarce and valuable skills we need more of if we’re going to grow our economy), you’re going to have to jump through a whole heap of hoops to convince our Department of Home Affairs that they should let you in. And genuine foreign investors can jolly well stick their money and their factories in any other country if Home Affairs doesn’t like the look of them. This because, nowadays, Home Affairs takes security very, very seriously.

(The new-found security obsession of what used to be considered the world’s worst government department does rather bring to mind that phrase that has to do with horses bolting and locking stable doors. Until very recently our borders were beyond porous and South African passports could be bought at any old flea market almost anywhere in the world.)

But not any more, not since tough guy Malusi Gigaba took over at Home Affairs a few months ago. Now we have a department of paper shufflers determined to keep us all safe. About time too (the police gave up long ago on the business of keeping people safe and secure).

But the regulations that Home Affairs’ blunt-instrument law-drafters have come up with are not exactly winning them friends and influencing people.

Most recently it was the airlines that were up in arms over Home Affairs’ brilliant idea that nobody should be allowed to travel to South Africa with a child if that child did not have an unabridged birth certificate.

All over the world millions of very nice people with nice steady jobs they have worked at for 30-odd years have been saving all their lives to come on holiday to South Africa so that they can point their Nokias at our crocodiles, get a suntan and drink cheap beer.

The problem the airlines have with this unabridged birth-certificate story is that Kenya also has cheap beer and lots of sunshine.

And crocodiles. In fact, thanks to that carefully stage-managed annual migration lark, Kenya’s crocodiles are much more famous than our crocodiles. (A big drawcard for nice rich foreign people with steady jobs used to be our rhinos but, well, we’re sort of running out of those .)

Last week the mandarins at Home Affairs agreed, in the most grudging tones, that they would deign to speak to the meddling, protesting airlines, which wanted the unabridged-certificate wheeze postponed for a year.

This is good news. Perhaps Mr and Mrs Airline can explain to the aunties at Home Affairs how things work: “We fly in lots of foreign tourists who spend lots of money in our country having a wonderful time. The money these nice rich people spend creates jobs.

“All of the people looking after them – the hotels, the bus operators, the B&Bs, the restaurants, the shopkeepers the grandchildren buy ‘Hello Kitty Goes to Kruger’ T-shirts from, even the brewers who make the beer – pay things called ‘taxes’.

“And those taxes keep you lot at Home Affairs in your jobs.”

Now I wonder which government department will try to top this act of lunacy. There sure are plenty of them, and they keep growing after every election.

Justice Malala on President Zuma

Justice Malala has written another great opinion piece on Times Live. It is just so good, that it would be a travesty not to share. I have taken the liberty to lift it whole for you to enjoy, if it is at all possible to take pleasure in reading about an obscenely disgraceful person.

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Zuma the wrecking ball

Just a month into his second term, President Jacob Zuma is politically exposed and his former friends are calling him names in parliament. Already, many within the ruling party have begun contesting for his position.

His performance in parliament last week was dismal and underlined what some of us have said since 2005, when Thabo Mbeki fired him: he is not fit to govern and is not fit to walk in the shoes of Oliver Tambo and Albert Luthuli. His first term as chief executive of South Africa Incorporated was an absolute disaster. His second will be worse.

His new cabinet is possibly the worst to sit around a table in the boardrooms of the Union Buildings since democracy dawned. It is a collection of cronies, incompetents and yes-men. It is a cabinet in which the few talented and worthy individuals are overwhelmed by the compromised.

Zuma stood up in parliament last week and brazenly told us something we all know – we have run out of electricity. The only reason we still have lights on in our homes is because Eskom is diverting electricity to consumers while the mines and other big users are being starved of the stuff. Expect major outages when the platinum miners go back to work.

Now, you would think that a president would send his best people to deal with the sort of energy crisis we face.

Zuma did, after all, spend the biggest chunk of his speech going on about our energy challenges. How does he solve this clear and present danger?

He has appointed possibly the most controversial, divisive and incompetent minister of his last administration, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, to the energy portfolio. You have to wonder what kind of sick joke is being played on the electorate. In her report in December, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said Zuma should act against Joemat-Pettersson because of her “reckless dealing with state money and services, resulting in fruitless and wasteful expenditure, loss of confidence in the fisheries industry in South Africa, alleged decimation of fisheries resources in South Africa and delayed quota allocations due to lack of appropriate research”.

But Zuma went and appointed her to what is potentially the most critical job in his administration. Within days she was telling the world that South Africa will be building a nuclear power plant.

And who will be building this facility? Ah, President Zuma’s new best friends, the Russian government. Let me give you a prediction, dear reader: In 2030 there will be a commission of inquiry in South Africa investigating “corruption related to a trillion-dollar nuclear deal”. This is another arms deal in the making. Mark my words.

You have to wonder who advised Zuma on some of his appointments. Siyabonga Cwele? Faith Muthambi? Nathi Mthethwa? It boggles the mind.

When he has a clear opportunity to do something extraordinary, the man chokes.

Why is an announcement that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will run the National Development Plan not explicit in Zuma’s speeches? As usual, on this issue Zuma has done what he does best, he has poured uncertainty into the milieu.

On May 25, announcing his new cabinet, he said: “The National Planning Commission, as well as the performance monitoring and evaluation ministries in The Presidency, have been combined into one ministry to harmonise the planning and monitoring functions.”

He announced that the man in charge of this ministry is Jeff Radebe.

Last weekend the ANC, reacting to the bad news that two international ratings agencies found our economic future bleak, issued this statement: “The Deputy President, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, has been assigned the task of chairing the National Planning Commission and has overall oversight of the implementation and enforcement of the NDP across government.”

What is going on here? Does Zuma’s left hand know what the right hand is doing? I don’t think so. In fact, I think some distance is beginning to emerge between Zuma and his party. It seems to me the ANC wants some leadership, whereas Zuma prefers to keep things murky and divisive while he rules the roost. It is absolutely the wrong way to run a country.

Thankfully, it seems as if some in the ANC are waking up to the fact that the man is a liability. As a clearly ailing Zuma hobbled into parliament last week party branches across the country were beginning to caucus about who should succeed him when the party conference is held in December 2017.

The powerful KwaZulu-Natal branch could push for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or Zweli Mkhize.

But the North West, Gauteng, Eastern Cape and Limpopo branches are saying Ramaphosa should be given a chance. Ramaphosa needs to send them a signal that he is ready to run.

Crucially, KwaZulu-Natal ANC leaders are saying they are prepared to back Ramaphosa, but would want to have Mkhize as his No2. This is where the sticking point lies: a place has to be found for ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, at present the most powerful man in the party.

It will be an interesting race, but Zuma could lobby hard for his former wife to succeed him.

Meanwhile, South Africa will just have to grit its teeth for another five long years with the liability that is Zuma.

Because the people have abrogated their responsibility…

How can an organisation that refused to have a personality cult built around Nelson Mandela allow itself to become a mere tool in the hands of Zuma? How can its leaders cast aside the party’s historical mission – to transform the lives of millions of poor black people and build a united, non-racial, prosperous and democratic country – to simply become gophers for Zuma?

That is the question being posed by Justice Malala, a newspaper columnist and host of a television show The Justice Factor, in an online newspaper today.

If you’re not familiar with South African politics, read this:

President Jacob Zuma is not a fool. He makes gaffes every week and has no idea what constitutionality means. But he is no fool.

He might not read – as has been alleged – but that does not mean he does not know what levers have to be cranked to ensure that he never gets inside a court.

Since he became the president of the ANC in 2007, he has overseen the most concerted and successful assault on the country’s independent institutions.

The judiciary is today facing a major crisis of confidence because of cases involving him at the Constitutional Court.

The minute he won the ANC presidency in Polokwane, the Scorpions – which had been investigating him- were disbanded. It was quick, cruel and ruthless.

Over the past few months it has been the public protector’s turn. In that time, we have witnessed concerted and coordinated attacks from parliament, the executive and various wings of the ANC on the office led by possibly the most admired “public servant” in the nation today – Thuli Madonsela.

This past week we had the extraordinary sight of our security cluster – which has over the past few weeks made fools of themselves saying all kinds of nonsense about Madonsela – turning on the populace and declaring that publication of pictures of the taxpayer-funded Nkandla monstrosity were illegal and that the full might of the law would come down on those who dared to do so. All this for one man: Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.

The man is not a fool. He has managed to get Africa’s oldest liberation movement to become a tool for his protection.

Whatever he does – whether it is his friends the Guptas landing their planes at military key points with impunity or a hideous compound being built for him for R208-million, the man has got the party rushing to do his bidding.

And so one has to ask: Which ANC is this?

How can an organisation that refused to have a personality cult built around Nelson Mandela allow itself to become a mere tool in the hands of Zuma? How can its leaders cast aside the party’s historical mission – to transform the lives of millions of poor black people and build a united, non-racial, prosperous and democratic country – to simply become gophers for Zuma?

Yet that is what the party’s 86-member national executive committee has become.

ANC MPs are now introducing legislation that is aimed solely at protecting this one man.

Across the land, provincial party leaders hobble state machinery merely to protect and keep this one compromised leader out of jail and in power.

It is an incredible sight.

Once proud leaders who served our nation in exile, in the United Democratic Front and in trade unions now scrape and bow before one man.

The ANC no longer has leaders. It has zombies who mindlessly follow this one leader and do his bidding.

It is quite extraordinary.

What has happened to the culture of debate and contestation that once permeated this movement?

What happened to the pride that made this once great organisation stand up and expel people who muddied its name?

How can this lot walk in the shoes of Albert Luthuli, AP Mda, Anton Lembede, Pixley kaIsaka Seme?

So, as we look at the extraordinary lengths that the current ANC “leadership” has gone to defend an embarrassment of a leader whose entire family seems to be infused by a shocking culture of entitlement – Zuma’s brother, Michael, last week admitted using his name to swing tenders to his benefactors – we have to ask: Where is the ANC?

The answer is heartbreaking: The ANC is compromised; it is lost.

It has lost its moral compass and its leadership of society.

The man at its head is a reflection of what the party is: ill-disciplined, compromised and unprincipled.

The desperation one sees among the ANC’s leaders is a reflection of this. When a man as widely admired as Cyril Ramaphosa has no other argument to convince a voter to still support the ANC than “the Boers will return”, then you know that this is a movement that is both intellectually and morally bankrupt. The emperor and his lieutenants have no clothes.

And so we will remember the reign of Zuma. We will remember it not for its achievements but for the cowardice, callowness and bankruptcy of the leadership that he brought with him. We will remember his lackeys for their bowing and scraping and their destruction of the continent’s greatest liberation movement. What an ignominious end for the party of Mandela.

The answer may be simpler than we think! The people who continue to support this outrage are those who continue to vote for him.

There’s only one way out of this mess. And you have the responsibility to use it well at the next elections.

Today in Politics: Roasting #05

Corruption? Don’t worry, we’re on top of it

I don’t know if President Jacob Zuma smokes. But if he does, he really must be smoking some awfully good shit recently.

First he mouths off about how our un-broken constitution needs to be fixed on an annual basis [apparently because every other country in the world does it?], and now he wants us to believe that every other country in the world is monumentally stupid because they haven’t yet discovered, and exposed the corruption that goes on there.

Catch a load of this steaming pile of horse shit as quoted in Times Live, an online newspaper:

What we should remember is that South Africa is the only country that has a programme to fight corruption. It’s not being fought anywhere else.

And that’s why you can’t read about corruption in other countries. It’s a reality. South Africa has a programme to fight corruption and it is fighting it.

He must think everyone in this country are either 6-year olds’ [just listen to the childish manner in which he speaks], or total idiots for being unaware that the majority of the corruption in South Africa is being perpetrated by his own government, who are all ANC members and their cronies. The twit actually expects us to believe that his government is actively exposing corruption. He goes on:

You must be saying ‘well done government’. We’re one of the countries in the world that has a dedicated programme of fighting corruption.

No, you infantile bozo, we are saying “well done, for getting away with it for so long.” We also know that your dedicated programme is about fighting FOR corruption, not AGAINST.

The village idiot’s idiot, to address the ruined of Zimbabwe

Surely this report on Times Live is an early April Fool’s joke? It has to be. The (woodworking) tool of South Africa addressing the tool-less of Zimbabwe?

Now that I have managed to bring my howls of laughter under control, I have taken a few minutes to reflect on its veracity. If its’ true, then heaven help Zimbabwe…and South Arica.

Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister (whatever the hell that is) Saviour Kasukuwere, apparently believes that Malema’s visit will facilitate

youth movements from the two countries to share experiences and map strategies

***Personal warning to Youth of Zimbabwe: If Malema is headed your way, run like hell!!! The only thing Malema can teach the youth of Zimbabwe is how to become better lap-dogs of your lunatic President, Robert Mugabe***

Perhaps Malema is not going to Zimbabwe to impart knowledge, but to learn some new moves, now that his slimy repertoire has been so brutally exposed back home. Perhaps he’s going there to learn how to “shoot the Boers” and take their farms as Mugabe so effortlessly did. They already know that getting rich through government tenders is so tedious and takes too long. Or perhaps he’s going to learn how to stay in power forever, on behalf of his ANC friends; you know, the guys who cover his back so that his poverty doesn’t show.

But a little bird tells me that the only thing to learn from people with idiotic titles like Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister, is how to totally ruin a country. I’ll bet that the holder of this pompous title truly believes that he is involved in a “fight for full economic independence” which incidentally, Malema’s visit is supposed to be in solidarity with. Modern day revolutionaries – what a bunch of jokers?

Let’s hope that Mugabe treats our village idiot’s idiot, so well, that he decides to stay in Zimbabwe for good. I can just imagine the champagne corks popping at the mere thought of that eventuality.