PROTESTS & PRIVATE PROSECUTION

The Times editorial (18/7/17) bemoaned the fact "that there is little hope of South Africa's hobbled prosecutors bringing the perpetrators of state capture to book".  True, even when charges are filed the docket is either lost, stolen, or dumped in the round file.

The solution, according to the editorial is for certain civil society "to march on those who can do something about the problem - the prosecutors and the police".  

In addition to protest marches, private prosecution is available when law enforcement sits on its hands.  Why is it we haven't heard from Gerry Nel who left the NPA for this very purpose?  It's not as if there is an acute shortage of egregious criminal conduct to prosecute!

BALEKA MBETA : A DOEK WITHOUT SUBSTANCE

National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete cuts a fine figure bedecked from head to toe in coordinated finery. In fact, she is one of the few who complements the meaning of mutton dressed up as lamb.

The same cannot be said for her belief that "some judges" are biased against ANC litigants. According to her "it has nothing to do with merit, with correctness or wrongness".  An indefensible belief that goes so far as to metaphorically stain
her regalia.  Like the emperor who wears no clothes, she refuses to see things for what they truly are, instead of denying the truth of the situation.

Rather than asserting judicial bias and overreach, Mbete should surely understand that she and her ANC comrades are their own worst enemies.  She, and others are to blame for endless irrational decisions that demand judicial review.  It has nothing to do with judicial bias, but rather a pervasive level of vacuity that resides in the ANC's theatre of the absurd.

SOUTH AFRICA - AN EASY MARK FOR EASY MONEY

There is no question that South Africa is a mark for easy money dishonestly obtained, or with very little work or effort. One simply has to ask the infamous Gupta brothers how easy it was to capture the state and its SOEs, aided and abetted by government officials bent on lining their pockets.

There is another situation where government insidiously and wantonly wastes obscene sums of money with very little or no attention drawn to it.  This involves consultancy firms retained by national and local government to provide so-called specialised services.  It is legal, but in most cases morally indefensible, because such services, mostly fall into the category of routine in-house responsibilities.

Consultancy services are big business in South Africa - R25-billion spent in the 2015-16 financial year. The likes of Transnet, SABC, Eskom and SAA are addicted to global consultancy services.  They fool themselves that such services will magically dig them out of self-created financial holes.  If it was so, there would be no need for ongoing government guarantees to bail out SOE albatrosses metaphorically around the neck of South Africa's economy.  Billions of rand redound to the benefit of consultants for so-called expertise for what is already patently known, except for dressed-up management consulting double speak.

A couple of journalists recently raised the question of hidden beneficiaries from the billions of rand flowing between global consultancy firms and SOEs.  A bit of a stretch?  Not very likely.

WILL THE SA JUDICIARY BE WHISTLING DIXIE?

President Jacob Zuma is fed up with South Africa's constitutional democracy.  In comments at the ANC's policy conference he lashed out at opposition parties for challenging government decisions in court.  He could have also added his bitter frustration in having to fend off court challenges against him.   But, that would have been too self-serving even for our president.

The court challenges, according to Zuma, undermine the government from implementing its policies, and flies in the face of his understanding of democracy.  In Zuma's world constitutional democracy is unworkable, because "you can't do anything". . . So that, in a sense, [democracy] undermines simple logic that the majority rules. . . "

Zuma is street smart, but when it comes to the workings of democracy he is as dumb as a rock. To him the fact that the ANC is the majority of the electorate gives his government the right to place its interests above all else. That being so, the courts have no business in challenging government decisions.

There are now rumblings for the party to review the Constitution to emasculate the courts.  It seems history will be repeating itself.