Jackie Selebi granted medical parole 2012-07-20 10:55
Pretoria - Corruption-convicted former police commissioner Jackie Selebi will be released from prison on Friday, Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele announced in Pretoria.
"Mr Selebi will be going home today [Friday]," he told a media briefing in Pretoria.
"The department has limited capacity to provide for palliative care needed by some offenders," said Ndebele.
Palliative care meant he would be kept comfortable until his death, as there was no hope of him recovering.
Dialysis
An 11-member medical parole advisory board met on June 20 and recommended the release of six offenders, including Selebi, who needed dialysis for kidney failure.
Three of them had since died, said Ndebele.
Selebi was the president of Interpol at the time of the investigation into claims that he received money from convicted drug trafficker and police informer Glenn Agliotti.
He was convicted of corruption on July 2, 2010, and handed a 15-year jail sentence.
Selebi appealed against the corruption conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal. His appeal was denied.
In December 2011, he collapsed at home in Waterkloof, Pretoria, while watching the judgment on television.
The appeal outcome meant he had to begin his 15-year jail sentence for corruption. It was decided he would stay in Pretoria Central prison's medical wing indefinitely.
At the time he had not instructed his medical team to apply for medical parole. Selebi had also been trained to administer his own treatment. He suffered from diabetes and kidney disease.
- SAPA
Meanwhile, he's been getting his fat state pension while in prison(sic) and having a good laugh at the piss poor crony friendly justice system in SA. You would die of an overdose before you got enough drugs in you to make up shit like this...
Selebi still getting state pension 2012-05-31 08:48
Johannesburg - Corruption-convicted former police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, is still receiving a state pension and medical aid, according to a report on Thursday.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa revealed this while responding to a written question from the Democratic Alliance in Parliament, The Star newspaper reported.
Selebi's employment contract was simply allowed to lapse in August 2009, instead of him being dishonourably discharged. This meant he still receives a "huge, fat pension and medical aid", DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard said.
Selebi lost his appeal against a corruption conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal in December.
He is currently serving a 15-year jail term, but has been in and out of hospital with kidney problems.
- SAPA
Is it worth betting on how long it takes him to join Shaik on the golf course?
ANC slams racist weather for turning Eastern Cape white
The ANC has slammed “racist and colonialist” weather for trying to turn the Eastern Cape white this week. “It is not surprising that much of the Western Cape is white, seeing that it is the kingdom of the Ice Queen Zille,” said a spokesman, “but for these bloody snowflakes to come and bring their white tendencies to the Eastern Cape, man, that’s cold.”
According to party spokesman, Voicebox Vilakazi, the whiteness was up to one meter deep in many ANC strongholds.
“Historically, this whiteness does not belong here,” explained Vilakazi. “It is traditionally part of Europe, and we reject it bringing these freezing tendencies into our province.”
He said there was also evidence that Helen Zille’s administration in the Western Cape was exporting the whiteness as part of its “hellish programme to cut off roads and freeze service delivery” in the Eastern Cape.
“Using a sophisticated surveillance technique we call ‘Watching The Weather Report At The End Of The News’, we have noticed that all these so-called cold fronts start over Cape Town,” said Vilakazi. “We don’t know how Zille is making this so-called snow, but we suspect some sort of machine that sucks ubuntu out of the atmosphere and freezes it in a giant fridge of colonialism.”
However, trade union Solidarity defended the snow this morning, saying that although it had been formed in a weather system beyond South Africa’s borders, it now had a right to settle anywhere it chose within the Republic.
“Of all forms of precipitation, snowflakes are the tiniest minority in South Africa,” said Solidarity’s Piepie Poggenpoel. “As such, their rights need to be protected.”
But the ANC hit back, saying that plans were already being developed to destroy the snow wherever it lay.
“Intensive research by our Science Brigade has revealed that snow is extremely vulnerable to hot air,” explained Vilakazi. “Like all reactionary imperialists, it crumbles and then runs away once subjected to the hotness of our revolutionary zeal.
“Which is why the ANC’s senior leadership has been mobilized, and will be deployed to deliver election promises at the snow. Given the amount of hot air they can produce in a few hours, the snow is doomed.”
David Bullard was one of those journos who thought all this would be a good idea. Funny how things change. Those who warned these things would happen were a little more farsighted than we thought, eh?
Quote:
David Bullard 18 July 2012
The ANC's "selfless strugglemobile"
The opportunity was too good to miss. As I drove into the basement parking to drop off some dry cleaning earlier this week another rather more eye-catching car than mine entered the garage. I couldn't help noticing the number "100" prominently displayed on the side of the vehicle in ANC colours. Being a nosy sort of bloke I decided to take a closer look so, once the driver was safely out of the way, I went up to inspect the parked vehicle more thoroughly. It was a Mercedes-Benz E500 convertible (with Free State plates) which sells for around R1m without any optional extras. On the side of the car were the words "ANC-Celebrating 100 Years Selfless Struggle" with the ANC logo liberally displayed on various other parts of the car. The rear bumper carried the same message. Obviously I had to photograph it and put the picture up on PPRuNe and Facebook just to gauge reader reaction. Not surprisingly it was much the same as mine had been which was sheer disbelief. Now, with hindsight, I suppose it's possible that the DA had a whip round, bought a very expensive convertible, covered it with this 100 year congratulatory message and are driving it around the northern suburbs in the hope of discrediting the ANC ahead of the next election. But that wouldn't explain the Free State plates and, besides, if you want to discredit the ANC you don't drive around the northern suburbs of Joburg where the party has long been discredited. You drive through the townships in the hope that the people on the ground might see the irony of the driver of a R1m motorcar claiming to be a member of a party involved in a selfless struggle. But that would also be a colossal waste of time and petrol because the people on the ground have had the wool pulled over their eyes for the past eighteen years and will still vote ANC simply because it was the party that liberated them back in 1994. In a way you have to admire the brutal honesty of anyone who plasters his high performance car with ANC decals advertising 100 years of Selfless Struggle because it perfectly encapsulates what the post 1994 ANC are all about. Long gone are all the noble ideals of uplifting the downtrodden and poor and in their place is a hard edged get rich quick culture. But it's a rather limited get rich quick culture so if you're not on the loyal cadre list forget it. It's a culture that embraces a whole range of evils, all designed to weaken democracy and keep the riff raff in their place. The most obvious is the dubious tender system which allows well connected members of the ruling party and their relatives to win lucrative government contracts to perform tasks they are clearly incapable of. Anybody who has attempted to drive on the road to Royal Natal National Park recently will understand exactly what I mean. It's been under construction for well over a year now so either the funding has dried up or, just as possibly, the company awarded the contract has never built a road before. It may even be (perish the thought) that part of the upfront contract payment was splurged on a Mercedes E500 convertible which didn't leave enough to pay the workers. If you're not well connected enough to be awarded a tender you might be lucky enough to get a cushy job with a fancy title in one of the many boondoggles the ANC has set up over the years. If you're caught with your hand in the cookie jar don't despair because you will be suspended on full pay while the meandering legal process takes its course. That means you can stay at home for at least five years without having to worry about doing a stroke of work. The problem with waste and corruption on the grand scale that we are experiencing it is that it cannot be sustained. Eventually the cupboard will be bare. I often compare what is happening in South Africa to the tins of Quality Street toffees and chocolates that used to be a Christmas treat in our household. There were so many different coloured sweets that it was possible to pinch a couple, shake the tin, and nobody would be any the wiser. Then the sweet thieving got to a level where some of the tin began to show so it became necessary to push the remaining sweets up the side to hide the bare metal. Eventually it became obvious that persons unknown had been raiding the sweet tin which was the signal for everyone to swipe a sweet. By that stage there was no need to cover up the crime because everybody was in on it. Our economic plundering has reached that stage. The feeling seems to be that if you don't get your share now then don't complain when there's nothing left. Since very few politicians appear to get prosecuted for corruption in this country it has become a popular way of making a fast buck with a very acceptable reward to risk ratio. It also carries bragging rights which is why it's obviously not considered bad form to plaster the words "Selfless Struggle" on the side of an expensive car. One wonders what Nelson Mandela, who celebrated his 94th birthday yesterday, makes of all this. Does he look fondly on the leaders of his beloved ANC, believing that they represent the true ideals of the party he fought for? Or does he, like so many others in this country, wonder how it could have all gone so wrong?
ANC mobilizes zombie hunters as Zuma blames education crisis on Verwoerd
LIMPOPO. A day after Jacob Zuma blamed Hendrik Verwoerd for the Limpopo education crisis, the ANC has dispatched a crack team of zombie hunters to track down the apartheid leader. “If we understand the President correctly, there’s a 111-year-old undead white supremacist hijacking textbooks out there,” said a spokesman. “And we’ve got a silver tapeworm with his name on it.”
Zuma dropped the macabre bombshell during an interview on Talk Radio 702 on Monday, saying that what was currently taking place in Limpopo school was the work of Verwoerd.
“At first we thought he might have been implying that Bantu education has left officials and teachers without basic administrative skills,” said education expert, Dr Ivor E. Tower. “But even a Limpopo 2nd Grader can figure out that the textbook scandal isn’t about historical injustice. I mean, how hard is it to turn the ignition key of a delivery van?”
He said the only logical explanation for Zuma’s statement was that Verwoerd was actively preventing the delivery of textbooks.
Lead zombie hunter, Eton De Bruyns, said that his team was leaving nothing to chance.
“If Verwoerd is active in Limpopo, we have to assume that he has been living an openly zombie lifestyle since his death in 1966,” said De Bruyns. “And as such he has learned all the survival tactics you need to get by unnoticed as a rotting centenarian Broederbonder. Little tricks like not lurching too much, and not moaning ‘Braaaaains!’ during Sunday lunch with the family.”
He said that his team had been issued with silver-plated tapeworms, but added that if the worms failed to bring down Verwoerd, they would “escalate to plan B”.
“Basically we corner him in his lair, then blast him with the collected speeches of Thabo Mbeki at full volume until his head explodes,” said De Bruyns. “You could picture it as a kind of cranial Separate Development.”
Meanwhile, the Presidency is set to blame Verwoerd for a wide range of other social ills.
“The racist media tries to make us believe that the honest, hardworking, revolutionary public service stole R3-billion last year,” said spokesman, Spokes Mann. “That’s obviously rubbish. Anyone with half a braaaain could see that it was this Verwoerd abomination, embezzling billions to decorate his lair with lampshades made of human skin. Seriously. For real. Cross my heart.”
You couldn't make this up. Those who keep them in power are kept in the dark to further a political agenda.
Quote:
As Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga fights to keep her job, it emerged this week that she would contest the widespread view that the Constitution guaranteed immediate basic education rights.
In the same step she has also backtracked on her previous promises to publish minimum norms and standards for school infrastructure.
Both these moves are part of her long-awaited response to non-governmental organisation Equal Education's application to the Bhisho High Court in March seeking to force her to publish these standards. Her first two requests for an extension to file her answering affidavit were granted, but the third was denied.
Equal Education's application to the court argued that "the right to a basic education is immediately realisable and is not subject to progressive realisation in the light of available resources".
By contrast, Motshekga's affidavit refers to "budgetary constraints" and "the limitation of available resources" in arguing why she will not promulgate the much-anticipated minimum norms and standards.
"[T]he right guaranteed by section 29(1)(a) of the Constitution is the right to a basic education [and] account has to be taken of socioeconomic realities," her response states.
The minister's stance was "perplexing", said constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos. The Constitutional Court, he said, had previously distinguished between education and other socioeconomic rights, such as housing and healthcare, by saying that "the right to education is not qualified by available resources and is not subject to progressive realisation".
"Children need to be provided with basic education now. It is not about waiting for money to do this," De Vos said.
Mr de Klerk, ....... said that ........ the spirit of reconciliation and non-racialism that the two men helped to foster during the 1990s transition was fading.
The 76-year-old former politician said he believed Mr Mandela would be sad about how racism has once again come to the fore through politicians “at the highest level using aggressive racial rhetoric”.
.........
.............. Mr Zuma also said recently that the scandal of children in Limpopo province attending schools without textbooks this year was the fault of apartheid architect and 1960s president, Hendrik Verwoerd, because it stemmed from his racist policies.
Mr de Klerk said playing the race card was damaging for all South Africans. “Racialism is called up, to my mind, in order to create a smokescreen behind which to hide the failure of good management and effective governance,”
William Gumede, an author, said Mr de Klerk was right about the racial rhetoric.
“Racial divisions appear to have heightened because of continuing inequality along racial lines and you will always have opportunistic politicians exploiting that,” he said. But he said Mr de Klerk and members of the old apartheid regime still had a role to play in defusing the argument and taking responsibility for their policies.
And the stink of corruption just grows stronger...
Quote:
Iran helicopter deal stink grows ROB ROSE, STEPHAN HOFSTATTER and MZILIKAZI WA AFRIKA | 05 August, 2012 09:53
AN audit report has slammed high-ranking government officials for "placing South Africa at risk" of breaking United Nations sanctions when they issued letters of support to a company trying to sell helicopters to Iran.
Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe's romantic partner Gugu Mtshali and her close associates stand accused of peddling political support for the Iran deal - in return for a promised R104-million.
The Grant Thornton report, commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry, is the first independent proof that officials delivered on their side of a deal to solicit political support for the company, 360 Aviation.
It found that officials of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) were guilty of "gross negligence" by providing a government support letter to 360 Aviation for a R2-billion helicopter deal with Iran.
"The officials failed to protect the interest of South Africa at large ... thereby placing South Africa at risk of engaging in sanctions-busting deals with Iran," the report said.
The Sunday Times first exposed that 360 Aviation MD Barry Oberholzer was promised "government support" in return for a payment of R104-million at a secret meeting at a Johannesburg restaurant in February 2011 attended by Mtshali, her business associate Joe Mboweni, and former De Beers executive Raisaka Masebelanga.
A recording of the meeting, obtained by the Sunday Times, reveals Masebelanga negotiating R10-million for a departmental endorsement letter, and another R94-million in shares for continued government support for the deal - saying "there is nothing for mahala". (Mahala = gratis, for nothing.)
In the recording, mysterious North West businessman Joe Mboweni says he works "on instructions from mama", understood to be Mtshali, and adds that he is "obviously" interested in discussing the profit share. Mboweni adds: "When you are a politician you are not just political, you must also look at the commercial side."
Two months later, 360 Aviation obtained the support letter from DTI acting deputy director-general Riaan le Roux through the lobbying efforts of former Land Bank executive Herman Moeketsi, a cousin and business partner of Masebelanga. Moeketsi is known to be close to Motlanthe.
Oberholzer told the Sunday Times the company believed it was being asked for a "bribe... in exchange for [government] support", and that Motlanthe's partner had been brought on board to lend political clout to efforts to clinch the deal, including a planned trip to Iran she was to undertake.
An e-mail Moeketsi sent to Oberholzer a week later, with the subject "Iran trip" and containing copies of the passports of Mtshali, Moeketsi and Masebelanga, appears to confirm this. Also attached was a "commission agreement" that specifies Moeketsi and Masebelanga would be paid a R10-million fee "to obtain a support letter from the South African government".
When the Sunday Times broke the story, Moeketsi and Masebelanga denied they had acted improperly. Mtshali said she never attended a "formal meeting" with 360 Aviation, but would not comment on the recording. She said she was "firmly of the view" that she had done nothing wrong. Mboweni could not be reached for comment.
In the end, no money changed hands because the deal never went through. But this cloud continues to hang over Motlanthe in the lead-up to the ANC's elective conference in Mangaung.
The deputy president asked public protector Thuli Madonsela to probe the claims in February. Motlanthe will get a "provisional report for his comments before the end of next week," Madonsela's spokes-woman told the Sunday Times this week.
This week's Grant Thornton report, obtained through a Promotion of Access to Information request by DA MP David Maynier, found major irregularities in how the DTI letters were issued.
The report recommends disciplinary action against Le Roux. DTI spokesman Sidwell Medupe confirmed this week the report had been submitted to the public protector but did not say why no action had been taken against Le Roux.
Maynier said the report highlighted the need for "a policy review on the whole question of 'letters of support' " which, he said, made the DTI vulnerable to corruption.
When interviewed as part of the probe, Le Roux said that "in hindsight, [he] would not have issued the letter, or would have followed a different process".
The report also confirmed Moeketsi personally lobbied DTI officials, including Le Roux. Moeketsi could not be reached for comment this week.
While Le Roux told the Sunday Times in February that the letters were only given after a thorough due diligence, Grant Thornton said this "can be viewed as a misrepresentation".
Le Roux denied receiving any bribes.
He told the Sunday Times this week: "The letter was signed based on the collection of background information and the fact that two such letters were signed [in earlier years] by the former deputy director-general of Trade Investment SA, Mr Iqbal Sharma".
Sharma this week told the Sunday Times that, "had sanctions been in place [at the time, in 2008 ], I certainly would not have issued any letter, as that would be sanctions-busting".
5 000+ dumped textbooks found in Limpopo 2012-08-07 07:15
Johannesburg - More than 5000 textbooks were found dumped in Majeje, in the Phalaborwa region, Limpopo police said on Tuesday.
Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ronel Otto said the books were dumped in an open veld on Monday morning and were in a good condition.
"The between 5 000 to 6 000 books range from Grade 0 to Grade 9 for various subjects," Otto said.
"Police along with the education department will launch investigations in order to determine where the books came from and where they were supposed to go."
Some grades in Limpopo received textbooks seven months after the school year started, while others were still waiting. Earlier in the year, lobby group Section27 obtained a court order for textbooks to be delivered to Limpopo by June 15.
In a meeting between Section27 and the department on June 21, a revised date of June 27 was set. The textbooks were finally delivered on the revised date.
On Monday, President Jacob Zuma received a preliminary report from a presidential task team that investigated the late delivery of textbooks in Limpopo.
Zuma is studying the report and urged the task team to continue and conclude its work. He said he would pronounce on the report once the matter has been concluded.
Otto said some of the books were still in their boxes and all the books were taken to the police station for safekeeping.
While millions live in poverty and the country spirals around the drain, the regime and their cronies are still living the life of Riley.
Quote:
Nelson Mandela’s controversial grandson Zondwa Mandela has run into trouble with financial services giant Investec, allegedly refusing to pay the bank for his luxury Mercedes Benz – or to hand it over to the bank’s recovery department.
This emerged after Investec hired private investigations firm, The Sequestrator, to find Mandela and the vehicle, a 2008 model Mercedes Benz S320 CDI worth R669 000.
But investigator Howard Blumenfeld apparently got the run-around from Mandela to such an extent the he still doesn’t know where he lives, nor the car’s location, after nearly a year.
A sheriff is said to have visited the home of even Nelson Mandela in Houghton, and another belonging to Zondwa’s grandmother, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, in an effort to find the car.
Zondwa Mandela is already embroiled in a massive mining scandal alongside the nephew of President Jacob Zuma, Khulubuse Zuma. As the bosses of Aurora Empowerment Systems, they are accused of destroying the infrastructure of two mines in Gauteng, resulting in 5 300 workers losing their jobs.
Zondwa, 28, is one of Mandela’s 17 grandchildren. He is alleged to have bought the Mercedes in 2010, but stopped paying the instalments.
Investec Private Bank head of risk and recovery Howard Tradonsky, confirmed that Investec obtained a judgment and attachment order for the return of the vehicle in October.
“He may have paid a few instalments in the beginning,” Tradonsky said, denying that Zondwa had received preferential treatment.
“Obviously when it’s a high-profile person, one is careful to be sensitive. But we try to be sensitive to all our clients. We’re not dealing with Mr Mandela any differently from other debtors who are unwilling or unable to pay.”
Blumenfeld said his investigations had revealed that Zondwa was living in his grandfather’s Houghton home, which the sheriff of the court had visited. “But that house was empty, and had been for 18 months,” he said.
Then someone reported seeing Zondwa staying with his grandmother, Winnie. “The sheriff went there and couldn’t find the vehicle. He left a note for [Zondwa] to contact the sheriff, but he never did.”
Blumenfeld added that they had no address at which to serve the summons because no one appeared to know where he was.
However, Blumenfeld said he was in telephonic contact with Zondwa, and had even met him in person in coffee shops to discuss the vehicle, pleading with him to hand it back, but without any luck.
“I talk to him daily. I sent him an SMS this morning. I told him if he doesn’t hand over the car, we’re going to report the vehicle as being driven without the bank’s consent.
“He keeps promising me money is coming in and he will pay the bank. But it never happens.”
Efforts to contact Zondwa Mandela for comment proved fruitless.
Johannesburg - A Limpopo education official dumped textbooks meant to be delivered to schools so he could use a state vehicle for joyrides, according to Sunday's Rapport newspaper.
"He did it because he had to return to the warehouse with an empty vehicle," basic education department director general Bobby Soobrayan told Parliament on Tuesday.
In addition, a corrupt contractor, using an old letter from the provincial education department, went to schools to collect superfluous textbooks. These were then shredded. According to Soobrayan it was illegal to destroy state property.
"But the service provider continued shredding and burning the books."
The provincial department paid him according to the weight of books he collected.
Such contractors were a "generic problem", he said. Systems in Limpopo's education department had collapsed, and corruption and dubious contracts were merely one symptom of this, he said, according to Rapport.
- SAPA
Last edited by Solid Rust Twotter; 20th Aug 2012 at 16:08.
More Hayibo. This time regarding the cost of Zuma and his multiple wives to the economy. Rome burns but the emperor fiddles on (in more ways than one).
Quote:
Zuma explains R77m is for wives’ Hungry Hungry Hippos
After it emerged that Jacob Zuma’s wives will cost taxpayers R77-million by the end of 2014, the President has gone on the offensive. “I know some people think I should be the Presidential Spousal Support Unit, given that I earn three million bucks a year,” said Zuma. “But I don’t wanna and I’m not gonna.”
Taxpayers, known in Government as “the gift that keeps on giving”, were stunned this week when it was revealed that Jacob Zuma’s first term as President will have cost them over R500-million.
However, this morning the Presidency hit back, branding the estimates as racist and imperialist.
“This is why President Zuma is overseeing the slow and methodical dismantling of education in our country,” said spokesman Facepalm Nyanda. “If it wasn’t for counterrevolutionary maths teachers, showing children how to undermine our democracy by adding up numbers, Msholozi could rule forever.”
However, Nyanda conceded that the figure of R77-million for Zuma’s wives was more or less accurate, with the bulk of the expenditure going towards thousands of Hungry Hungry Hippos games.
“The First, Second, Third and Fourth Ladies simply adore that game,” explained Nyanda. “But they get a bit rough, pounding away on their respective hippos, jabbing out those little plastic necks to grab the foie gras truffles they use instead of plastic balls. There’s a lot of breakage.”
However, insiders believe that the truth is stranger than fiction, although not JM Coetzee’s fiction, which isn’t very strange.
“None of the wives know that the other three are also married to Zuma,” said an unnamed sauce, widely suspected to be Monkey Gland. “So he needs to maintain four totally separate households, dashing between bedroom doors between ‘business trips’. There’s this permanently fraught sexual frisson, with lots of implausible dialogue between really tedious people. So basically it’s 7de Laan.”
Monkey Gland also confirmed that Zuma was having to be “extra nice” to his wives as “one of them has nicked the launch codes for his prototype ‘Spear 2′ intercontinental ballistic dildo, and he doesn’t know which one did it so he’s placating them all”.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Helen Zille has slammed the expenditure.
“I would never take four wives,” she fumed. “We Zilles either take one wife, or a hundred. Or, in the case of my great grandfather Heinrich, seven, but only because that was the whole female population of West Bad-Huffenpuffensachsenblott.”
Asked how she would spend the Presidential allowance were she to become President, Zille said it would be divided between “upkeep on the army surplus Panzer tank division I got as a Christening present in 1951 from an uncle in Argentina”.
“Plus there would be the monthly payments on the slab of carbonite in which I am going to imprison my enemies.”
Truly so, there was corruption, nepotism and racism under the Nats but we had a structure that worked, to a greater or lesser degree, for most people.
Under the ANC, it's all worse and doesn't work for most people.
We now have a cabal of few politically well connected blacks and their cronies who have done enormously well at the expense of the majority, for whom living conditions, security and wellbeing have declined. We now have a larger underclass of deprived whites too, whilst many whites feel insecure and unsettled in their own country.
SA is a de facto one party state, although the fluffy West will squeak and whine that it's a democracy. It's as close to a single party state as one can get with a tiny minority in opposition (around 12% of parliament IINM), and the civil service, military, police and education politicised and stripped of opposite views by the regime. The judiciary is barely hanging in there in the face of moves to make them subject to govt interference, although most of the top people are ANC aligned. The secrecy bill gives venal and corrupt ANC cadres carte blanche to rape the country even more, with those exposing the corruption at serious risk of prosecution from the thieves they're exposing.
As for the much lauded constitution, it serves as nothing more than a salve to the conscience of the liberal West, and is waved about when it suits govt, trampled under foot when it doesn't.
You thought Zim was a problem? You ain't seen nuthin' yet. More farmers have been murdered in SA than in Zim, yet the foreign press, so strident in the past, remains silent.
Last edited by Solid Rust Twotter; 4th Sep 2012 at 10:03.
Try to imagine the global outrage there would be if the police in Russia or China shot and killed 34 protesting workers. And just think what follow-up fury there would be if those Russian or Chinese police then arrested and charged the workers lucky enough to survive the massacre with the "murder" of their fallen colleagues. World leaders would hold press conferences so that they could be photographed solemnly shaking their heads and wringing their hands over those nasty, brutal coppers Over There. Amnesty International would have to hire extra part-time staff just to have enough people to stand sad-faced outside every Tube station in London while wearing t-shirts saying "Protect the Human" and pressing anti-Chinese or anti-Russian leaflets into commuters' hands. PPRuNe would go mental. And yet when those very things happened in South Africa – first the massacre of 34 miners in Marikana on 16 August and then the arrest of the surviving miners under a warped Orwellian law of the apartheid era that allows protesters to be charged with murder if the state kills some of their fellow protesters – the global gatekeepers of the human-rights culture said barely a peep. Amnesty issued a feeble statement, hidden deep on its website, about the need for the ANC government to institute a judge-led inquiry into the killings. And then it went straight back to organising global protests to have Pussy Riot released from their Russian jail. For Amnesty, three pretty white chicks are clearly way more important than 34 dead black blokes. Britain’s liberal broadsheets, which pride themselves on speaking truth to power, have published no thundering editorials about the massacre, no stinging critiques of the ANC. World leaders are also keeping schtum. Of course, the West’s self-styled defenders of human rights are infamous for their double standards. They are always far more agitated by Chinese police brutality than by any other nation’s police brutality, for example, because they think the Chinese are especially evil. They always describe wars fought in Africa – whisper it: by black people – as “genocides”, whereas the wars fought by Washington or London are always just “wars”. And they lose far more sleep over Russia’s imprisonment of Pussy Riot for two years on trumped-up charges of blasphemy than they do over Britain’s imprisonment of a tweeter for two months, or our imprisonment for four years of two blokes who wrote nonsense about rioting on their Facebook pages, because they think Eastern rulers are, unlike us, naturally mafia-esque and inherently authoritarian. So it isn’t a massive shock to find them downplaying one major massacre in favour of focusing on other, less pressing human-rights problems. But there is more to the conspiracy of silence over the Marikana massacre than double standards. More fundamentally, the reason there is so little fuss about this act of state terror is because Western leaders and their mates in the human-rights lobby have for years been telling us that the New South Africa, this post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation”, is a living, breathing testament to the values of truth and reconciliation over political conflict and to the elevation of respect for cultural diversity and human rights to the top of the political agenda. And this massacre shoots that myth down. It calls into question, in the most dramatic fashion imaginable, the idea that the New South Africa is a paragon of virtue and an advert for making “human rights” the lingua franca of political life, as the ANC has done. What this massacre reveals is that, in truth, there are deep, seriously unresolved divisions in South Africa, continuing and profound inequality, and rising disgruntlement among black workers with their black rulers. None of that reality is palatable to politicians or commentators over here, who for years have been behaving as if every problem in South Africa was fixed by the reforms that followed the unbanning of the ANC and the institutionalisation of a new kind of PC politics, and so they just ignore it – they ignore the massacre and they ignore the divisions that nurtured it. Anti-apartheid activists used to argue that those Western leaders who refused to condemn the apartheid regime were cynically putting their own interests, usually their business interests in South Africa, above the lives and liberties of black South Africans. By the same token, the human-rights lobby that has said barely a word about the Marikana massacre is now promoting its own interests, its investment of so much overblown hope and hype in the New South Africa, above the lives and liberties of the black workers who live there.
Probably not politically correct to say Honky. It's a derogatory name used by blacks of whites and might offend the latter even though many of the former wouldn't even recognise the word as an insult.
The emperor fiddles around buying new toys, while Rome burns...
Quote:
Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula is set to meet her finance colleague, Pravin Gordhan soon to start a new acquisition process for a new “VVIP” fleet for the South African Air Force. In an oral reply to a question last week, Mapisa-Nqakula said “both the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans and Minister of Finance are scheduled to meet before the end of the month to take forward discussions on this matter.”
She added that in early July the defence ministry “Hosted a media conference wherein we announced that although the need and requirements for air transportation for our VVIPs [very, very important people; the President and Cabinet] remain urgent, and that at some point a new procurement process will have to be embarked on, the department will have to first conduct a consultation process that takes into consideration all our circumstances before a new process start.
“Such a new process will include all the relevant stakeholders, in particular the Air Force in outlining the specifications of aircrafts to meet our requirements, as well as the National Treasury in relation to the procurement and budgetary processes to be considered in this regard.”
Mapisa-Nqakula added that she was “certainly committed to come back to the House [the National Assembly] and report on any decision going forward.
She also noted “recent media reports relating to the overall costs of flights for VIPs between 2009 and 2012”, saying: “We share the concern relating to the high costs, particularly with regard to ferry flights. We intend to investigate how these could be reduced to the minimum. We want to ensure that the travel of VIPs, while it needs to be managed effectively, and with due consideration for the necessary security requirements, it is also done with a complete commitment to the prudent use of public funds. At the end of the day, as a department, we are accountable for both.”
Mapisa-Nqakula’s opposition shadow, David Maynier, welcomed the comment. “I do welcome the statement made by the minister that she shares my concern about the high costs of VIP flights and recognizes that there is a need to be prudent with public funds. … This is a welcome change from former Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Lindiwe Sisulu, who seemed to spend much of her time zooming around the country on VIP aircraft, including luxury Gulfstream business jets, operated by the SAAF.”
Maynier was commenting too on the transport of VIPs on-board helicopters operated by the SAAF. He noted replies to a series of parliamentary questions last week reveal that between 2009 and 2012 the SAAF provided 590 helicopter flights for VIPs at the cost of R50 million.
The SAAF provided 147 VIP helicopter flights in 2009/10, 194 VIP helicopter flights in 2010/11, 211 VIP helicopter flights in 2011/12 and 38 VIP helicopter flights in 2012/13 as follows:
Of the 590 VIP helicopter flights, 228 VIP helicopter flights were “ferry flights”. “That means there were no VIP passengers on board the VIP helicopter for 228 of the flights,” he says. The 590 VIP helicopter flights cost R50 981 806.70 broken down as follows:
· 362 VIP helicopter flights at the cost of R 44 822 319.60; and
· 228 VIP helicopter “ferry flights” at the cost of R 6 159 487.10.
“That is an average cost of about R85 000 per flight on VIP helicopters operated by the SAAF.”
This follows revelations last week that R34.5 million had been spent on 700 “ferry flights” for VIPs on aircraft operated by the SAAF. This included R 4.9 million that was spent on 58 “ferry flights” undertaken by the Boeing Business Jet (“Inkwazi”) used by President Jacob Zuma.
Meanwhile, as the country spirals around the drain, they're still trying to shift the blame for their greed, venality and incompetence on to something that hasn't been around for almost 20 years.
We all intuitively know where South Africa ends up, a third world cesspool, consumed by racial politics, left wing government, anti-colonial rhetoric, and despair.
If I were South African I would focus all my energies on getting out.
Apart from the Happy Hollow Hallucinators who live in Cape Town, the poor afflicted Afrikaner who can go nowhere and the aggressively retentive gold digger who works in Johannesburg, a lot of whites are preoccupied a great deal of the time with the mechanics, mostly financial, of leaving. But Malema might be about to make an omelette of many peoples' plans. There are plenty of smart young blacks around who are totally disenchanted with the ANC. While they may not support Malema they could well see his little revolution as being the catalyst craft on which to hang their aspirations. It has been said before that the whites need to watch out for themselves when the blacks start fighting amongst themselves. We might now be about to see whether that will be so. The summer is coming and it might be a trifle warm on the surface let alone down at the pit face. Julius has turned the tables on Jacob it will be interesting to see how far the screw turns before the pips squeak.
If, and it's a big if, Jacob has any sense, Julius' car will suffer a brake failure on the highway or on a road ending in a sharp drop. Couldn't happen to a nicer person.
