The mamba and the demon
Before the ANC Youth League closes down the Julius Malema ‘get rich, get rich at all costs” story, let me ask them why the nation and young people in particular should trust Malema and the ANC after so many scandals? Only those who use Malema to bully opponents defend him. President Jacob Zuma defends him because Malema is a tool he uses to intimidate those who challenge his position. Zuma and the left used him against Thabo Mbeki and Tito Mboweni. He was the first to announce ‘Mbeki is gone” after the judgment by Judge Chris Nicholson. No sober ANC leader has escaped Malema’s rudeness. The left fed this mamba and he is now turning against them. The monster mamba is now uncontrollable.
Malema is a reflection of the ANC today: its dishonesty, disloyalty to principle and disregard for the intellect of the people, especially the youth and workers. The ANC and the left are facing a moral credibility problem. Blade Nzimande and Zwelinzima Vavi shielded Zuma from prosecution and used Malema to mobilise against Mbeki. The left and Zuma’s supporters never questioned the bankrolling of Zuma by Schabir Shaik, Vivian Reddy and Nora Fakude. Even South African Communist Party (SACP) leaders were bankrolled by Shaik. The left did not question Shaik’s funding of Dr Zweli Mkhize’s campaign against Sbu Ndebele, an Mbeki-ite before joining the Zuma camp after Polokwane.
The SACP’s support of lifestyle audits must cover the R4,1-million Shaik gave to Zuma. The nation will trust you only if you demonstrate that Zuma is not exempt. The youth should not trust Malema, who hides behind accusations of racism to camouflage his accumulation path.
Loyalty to the ANC and the tripartite alliance, even when its morality moves up and down like a yoyo, sustains Zuma and his cronies. Even if Madiba shares a platform with Zuma, I will never trust the ANC and the left as genuine cadres against corruption. The demon that Mbeki talked about, the demon that says ‘Get rich, get rich at all costs”, has conquered Zuma, Malema, Siphiwe Nyanda, Tony Yengeni and the entire left that followed Zuma blindly.
I hope that in 2012 the masses will vote with their brains more than their hearts. We must support lifestyle audits and the direct election of the president. The ANC and the left betrayed our trust. Malema, please do not use us, the youth and students, to climb up the ladder. You will never be my president. — Khanyisile Mathebula, Cape Town
I have followed media reports on the ANC Youth League president and his business dealings. I’m no friend of Julius Malema, but have to be objective. The principle I want to raise is that I, too, as a South African, want to enjoy the benefits of the empowerment opportunities afforded us by the democratic dispensation.
Malema is accused of getting business deals worth around R140-million with the government of Limpopo. But, just around the corner, WBHO Construction has built a stadium worth almost 10 times what Malema allegedly got and also got a tender to build a mall nearby. The tender for the road network that passes through the mall to the stadium was also awarded to WBHO. This did not cause an uproar. Why? Is the media’s morality selective?
I want to be rich as well, but what the media has been saying is that you can’t fight poverty and be rich at the same time. City Press asks how Malema runs his business with such a busy schedule, but WBHO has directors and owners who have employees whose duty is to look after the interests of their bosses who are drinking high tea in Sandton. But when it’s done by poor Malema, the country must come to a standstill because a black man is getting rich.
Journalists have families and employ domestic workers to take care of them when they are on duty somewhere, just like Malema hired people to take care of the day-to-day running of his business when he is busy in the ANC. Fire your maids and do your own laundry and cleaning before you say anything.
As young entrepreneurs we need to be inspired by success. I’m no Malema fan, but I defend the principle. — Tsheko Musolwa, Limpopo resident
Malema’s lawyer claims Malema’s signature was forged on documents showing him to be a director of a company benefiting from tenders. Malema himself, in his typically abrasive fashion, uses the term ‘fake”. They have forgotten that Malema recently asserted that he resigned telephonically, through his lawyer, suggesting no signature was required or requested. It is extraordinary to think someone would give up or transfer a multi-million-rand stake and not ascertain if it was concluded or not.
We, the nation, are treated as low-level fools by Malema and his lawyer if they tell bare-faced lies that make no sense at all. What is nauseating is that they don’t realise that the game is up for the puffed-up man who is himself a fake. Not even Winnie [Madikizela-] Mandela or his shamed mentor can save him this time. The nation has had enough.
Here are some tough questions for Malema and his lawyer:
- When the resignation was effected by phone to his lawyer, was Malema asked for his signature and were any forms filled in?
- If forms were filled in and the signature appended, why tell the nation it was done by phone?
- Did the lawyer or Malema get any confirmation and when was this?
- Did the lawyer give Malema an update?
- What happened to the multi-million shares and what was the precise instruction to the lawyer?
- When did they discover that a signature was forged and who did they report it to?
- What would motivate forging a signature to keep a person in a company?
This is surreal, if you ask me.
Malema has the gumption to say: ‘I have never seen a million rands.” This is a man who is wearing a watch worth a quarter of a million rands. This is a man who lives in two homes worth a total of upwards of R6-million. This is a man who owns a company worth millions. This is man who has been spotted riding around in not one but two Range Rovers worth a million each with extras.
You never know with Malema. He may indeed be honest about not having seen a million, because he can barely count and has no concept of money. All he can do is blurt out those pompous speeches to his receptive audience of retards. Remember the Nando’s ad? It sums up Malema’s intellect. — Tebza Ngwana
He deregistered, resigned without signing, doesn’t remember, his signature was forged, and anyway it’s okay to be a businessman if you’re not in office but are politically influential — Maybe so, but Malema still hasn’t told us how, if he’s not a millionaire businessman, he really got the money for his houses, his car, his watch. — Greg Young, Nelspruit
So what if Sars [South African Revenue Service] is ‘targeting” members of the Zuma faction in lifestyle audits? If their affairs are in order, they should have nothing to worry about. — SC Weiss, Johannesburg
Help save adult education
The report ‘NGO uses donor funds to fight legal battles” (February 5) went some way towards exposing bad governance by the majority of the Adult Learning Network (ALN) board members that currently plagues the organisation. The undersigned, all long-standing activists and supporters of the field of adult education, are appalled at the threat of collapse facing the ALN.
It is the task of civil society and indeed all of us in the country to work unselfishly for social justice in our quest to realise a fully transformed and democratic society. The majority of the ALN board members have lost focus of the role that adult education needs to play in realising this vision.
The ALN’s former finance officer and national manager both have cases pending at the Commission for Concilliation, Mediation and Arbitration and, should these go in favour of the staff members, the organisation’s limited resources will be further compromised.
In the adult education sector we’ve witnessed the collapse of two national organisations and shudder at the thought of a third experiencing a similar fate.
As it appears that the rift among board members runs too deep to expect any resolution, the Master of the High Court (as regulator of trust organisations) must act decisively and in the public interest to ensure that the ALN is saved from board members who are clearly incapable of ‘managing the affairs of others” as prescribed in terms of the Trust Property Control Act. — Adult Learning Forum (Western Cape); Initiative for Participatory Development (Eastern Cape); Tembaletu Trust, KwaZulu-Natal; Provincial coordinators of the ALN educators desk (Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape); Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg; Centre for Adult and Continuing Education, University of the Western Cape; Sango Coalition (Western Cape); Trust for Community Outreach in Education; ALN board members (Western Cape and Eastern Cape); Popular Education Network; Public Participation in Education Network; Paulo Freire Institute South Africa; Centre for Adult Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal; New Readers Publishers; Centre for Adult Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal; Alternative Information and Development Centre
Stop Zuma’s degeneration
Jacob Zuma was elected to replace the elite government of Thabo Mbeki with that of the poor and the working class. But after less than a year in power, Zuma is in conflict with the alliance partners on key issues affecting the poor.
The price of electricity is to increase 24% and the budget will increase the price of petrol, affecting livelihoods of the poor and working people.
Corruption enriches the rich and disempowers the poor, but Zuma opposes lifestyle audits, mainly because they might expose him and those close to him. He wants a two-tier labour regime, which we rejected during the Mbeki era. He wants to subsidise wages for interns, though he failed to save a million jobs. He sees the temporary jobs of the Expanded Public Works Programme as ‘job creation”.
Before and during his election campaign Zuma spoke militant Marxist rhetoric, but now he attempts to muzzle and discredit the left. A darling of the poor and the working class is now on the offensive against the organisations that put him where he is today. Why is Zuma not defending Gwede Mantashe? Why did he fail to remove Trevor Manuel from the planning commission?
The true left — people such as Pravin Gordhan, Ebrahim Patel, Thulas Nxesi, Noluthando Sibiya-Mayende and Eric Mtshali — must stop Zuma degenerating into a Mbeki-ite and neoliberal. — Richard Mgabhi, Durban
Are lesbians safer?
Your article ‘Not safe to come out” (February 25), about homosexuals being at risk of persecution, notes that 31 lesbians in South Africa were reported murdered in the 11 years 1998 to 2009. That is a minuscule proportion of all murders in South Africa for that period. Lesbians in the United States are estimated to be a much heftier 2,6% of the population. Assuming the same proportion applies in South Africa, it takes only about 1 200 random murders in our general population to account for that many lesbian victims by chance alone. There are more murders than that in a month in South Africa, so your figure implies that our lesbians are much safer from murder than the general population. — Michael Rolfe, Rondebosch
In brief
One of the greatest crimes against humanity will be seen by future generations — if there are any — in the proliferation of genetically modified crops. Untested poison has been allowed to be inserted into a major food crop, white maize. Where was the press when a major French study last year proved yet again that this stuff, even in the short term, significantly damages the liver and kidneys of experimental rats? Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.
This is apart from the irreparable damage to ecosystems. Every soothing reassurance dished out by biotech PR people has proved wrong. The press, which pretends to be our moral watchdog, has let us down badly on this issue. Can it be because science is our current religion and scientists are seen as gods? Or because the profits sound so enticing? Either way, publishing nice little supplements called Greening the Future while ignoring such a massive threat is pure hypocrisy. — Hilary Bassett
What a striking photo, by David Harrison, of Helen Zille having her picture taken outside Parliament — atmospheric and evocative, like a movie set between takes. — Monica Matthewson, Le Domaine