Enough: Tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets on Friday to support Jacob Zuma or to call for the president’s resignation because he has failed the ANC and the people of South Africa. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
‘Rare gem’ Malusi Gigaba is flawed
Before we turn up the volume too much on Malusi Gigaba’s praise-singing (“‘Rare gem’ Gigaba in it to win it”, M&G Online, April 7) let’s remember that this “rare gem”, as home affairs minister, was responsible for overseeing much idiocy and heartache in the great immigrant spousal debacle of 2014-2015.
As a privileged South African, I had the means to take home affairs to court back then and win.
Gigaba saw fit to dispatch a flock of inept state attorneys and officials to attempt to ensure that spouses and children, wrenched from their families, would stay separated. This was all based on illegal directives, which violated human rights, from a deeply flawed immigration directorate.
And, as if that wasn’t good enough, Gigaba saw fit to appeal the judgment against the directorate in every court, losing all the way to the Constitutional Court. I had to have another court order served in 2016 to tell the department to give my wife permanent residence. Yes, people, that’s your tax money hard at work.
This tells me a number of things about the man: He believes in the infallible, absolute power of the state (whether it’s uBaba’s or the Guptas’);
He has no concern for the poor or unheard in the country, those with no recourse to the law. The principle of his dogma of “statal infallibility” is far more important to him; and
His political ego is far too big to admit mistakes. Fruitless litigation and a bottomless public purse are much better instruments. He needs to read Kathryn Schulz on “why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes our relationships — whether between family members, colleagues, neighbours or nations”.
Such actions don’t bode well for a man in charge of the national finances. — Brent Johnson, Cape Town
The centre doesn’t hold
I am a child of the ANC, but today it feels like I have been brutally violated by my father.
Our political theory teaches us that the ANC is the strategic centre of power, and the centre must hold to advance the interests of the national democratic revolution. The central tenet of this revolution is a nonracial, nonsexist, democratic, prosperous, united nation.
The ANC is a democratic organisation and operates on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism. In the context of governance, the ANC thus accrues to its structures (relative to the sphere of government) the responsibility to be the principled director of all strategic and policy decisions, including deployment to strategic positions in the state. This political authority of the ANC is exercised in concert with the relevant executive authority in government as provided for in law.
Recent events suggest the “centre” has collapsed. The president of the republic opted to invoke presidential prerogative and in so doing acted outside the organisational conventions, exercising singularly (or with forces other than the ANC) the power to hire and fire members of the national executive or Cabinet.
In terms of section 91(2) of the Constitution, the president has this power, but two things must be taken into account: first, the president is required, under section 83(3), to “promote the unity of the nation and that which will advance the republic”, and, second, in terms of the president’s oath of office, the president must “promote all that will advance the republic, and oppose all that may harm it”.
These prescripts of the highest law of our land place an obligation on the president to act in the best interest of South Africa and to advance its national interest. But the president’s infamous “midnight reshuffle” has hit the markets hard.
These facts are a matter of public record, attested to by both the deputy president and the secretary general of the ANC. The president acted against the advice of at least three (of the six) national office bearers of the ANC. Put simply, the president has defied the organisation he leads.
The president’s actions go against the spirit and the letter of his constitutional duty and responsibility, and these actions have brought harm that will take many months if not years to undo. South Africa has seemingly descended into being a one-person state, with one all-powerful person at its head who is oblivious to or careless of the nation’s wellbeing and best interests.
If Jacob Zuma has failed the ANC and the people of South Africa, we have to ask: How much more must we endure? This far, I suggest, and no more. — Subesh Pillay
■ Of the wide choice of nonsense uttered by the new ministerial brigade, one stands out as classic stupidity. The water minister tweeted: “If the rand falls we can pick it up.” This is from a minister, reportedly, with millions missing from her ministry that are unaccounted for.
Ministers who have no knowledge of national finances (like the new finance minister) are in denial about the downgrades and the rand dropping by 10%. Some are saying it’s a good thing!
The ANC government has worked on the principle of “party members first, my family next, and the proletariat last”. It’s the skeletons in their cupboards that keep party members, right up to the top, in line. — Tom Morgan