OUT TO LUNCH

Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat…..very roughly translated as those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Let’s hope because there seems no doubt that Pres Frogboiler has gone mad. Even my former whisky drinking chum and sometime Sunday Times editor, Mondli Makhanya, had a full on go in his City Press column last Sunday. Commenting on the international reaction to South Africa’s virtue signalling support for the rape happy Hamas terrorists -

“The president said:

‘There can be little doubt that these forces will do everything to fight, and their fight-back may also focus on our domestic politics and election outcomes in order to pursue a regime change agenda’.

In case you didn’t get that bit, he is warning that, in retaliation for the South African government’s principled stand, Western powers will unleash the CIA of the US, the MI6 of the UK, Israel’s Mossad, Germany’s BND and the whole phalanx of imperialist intelligence agencies to plot the ANC’s ouster from power in the upcoming general election.

We used to laugh at Robert Mugabe, Jacob Zuma, the unkempt Andile Mgxitama and – yes – Fikile Mbalula when they verbalised such hallucinations. Yet here is Mr New Dawn, Mr Renewal and Mr Constitution himself, sounding just as deranged.”

Of course, Mondli is spot on when he points out that Frogboiler’s rants are deranged but what else should one expect from a desperate man in an election year who leads a hugely discredited former liberation party that has become nothing more than a gigantic criminal enterprise bent on milking whatever else it can from the country? ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

In fact, Frogboiler’s pronouncements have become progressively crazy over the past few years. I was invited to the SONA 2019 speech in the pre-torched National Assembly by John Steenhuisen in which Frogboiler revealed his dream of bullet trains crisscrossing the country, smart cities popping up all over the place and iPads in the hands of all SA school kids (sorry, scholars….my bad).

After all, it was only a year prior to that he had been elected unopposed to succeed the ousted state capture crook Jacob Zuma. The media went wild with photos and TV coverage of the ‘New Dawn’ President being hugged by grateful whiteys as he went for his morning jog along the Sea Point promenade. Given the location, many of those grateful whiteys would have been Jews I suspect and I wonder whether they feel their support has been reciprocated today as the ruling party moves into full-on Jew hating mode.

It’s taken a while for the message to finally get through that we have all been fooled by probably the biggest confidence trickster in the history of SA politics. The ‘New Dawn’ has turned out to be nothing of the sort and (sorry to flog an old joke of mine) all we have had is the ‘New Don’; in other words, a new, smoother talking mafia boss bent on supporting ANC criminality and undermining any institutions supposedly set up to rid the country of such criminality.

This week the moon faced Shamila Batohi celebrates five years of doing absolutely eff all to bring the crooks to justice as head of the National Procrastinating Authority. Kinder folk might argue that she has been short of good staff and starved of adequate funding but another explanation for the complete joke the NPA has become is that there is an implicit agreement with the ANC bigwigs that the ruling party must be spared the embarrassment of some of their sleazier members being dragged to court. Surely Adv Batohi could have resigned in protest long ago, but I guess the salary of head of the NPA must be tempting enough to hang in there, particularly as there is no pressure to perform other than from those pesky investigative journos; and they don’t pay the salary.

Just recently Frogboiler expressed the view that those seeking jobs should not be subjected to the demeaning requirement that they should have previous work experience. On the surface this makes a lot of sense in a country with the highest youth unemployment rate in the world. But since the high unemployment rate is a direct result of ANC economic and labour policy which is expressly designed to discourage both foreign investment and entrepreneurial spirit it’s not quite so simple.

Admittedly it’s not possible to get work experience if you can’t get a job but, on the other hand, what possible reason would a potential employer have in employing and paying somebody who hadn’t a clue what they were expected to do and had no idea that turning up only when they felt like it wasn’t one of the conditions of employment.

Of course, when one considers the makeup of the top-heavy cabinet the rule of ‘no previous experience necessary’ makes complete sense. The bunch of terminal losers Frogboiler has appointed to cabinet posts (with very few exceptions) are living proof that experience, expertise, intelligence or even some flicker of understanding are not regarded as essential qualities for helping to run a country.

More worrying than Frogboiler’s paranoia about hostile foreign powers trying to unseat the ANC at the next election is his stubborn silence over the News24 ‘Mashatile Unmasked’ series of investigative articles by Azarrah Karrim, Sipho Masondo and Kyle Cowan. Tellingly, these apparently meticulously researched pieces haven’t resulted in the usual bluster and threats of legal action from the Mashatile camp.

Since the latest report mentions Mashatile’s new R29 million seven-bedroom home in Constantia (in addition to his R37 million home in Waterfall Estate) and the fact that both properties were bought by his ‘well connected’ son in law Nceba Nonkwelo there are, understandably, questions to be asked of the man who is but a heartbeat from the Presidency.

Principally, where did Nonkwelo get all the money and might it have anything to do with a dodgy looking property deal or an even dodgier looking asbestos removing deal involving a cast of dubious characters and a few hundred million gone astray. The implication is that these phantom deals are simply a way to launder money for Mashatile’s benefit.

The DA has now written to the President asking him to institute a Special Investigating Unit probe into allegations of corruption against the deputy president. Since the ‘Mashatile Unmasked’ series of investigative articles goes back to at least the middle of last year one might have expected the Presidency to have already taken that initiative. Or let me put that another way…one might have expected the President to have taken the initiative if it weren’t for the fact that it may very well implicate many more senior political figures in our gangster state.

Assuming the ANC are still in power later this year, Paul Mashatile is the obvious choice as the next president of South Africa. Frogboiler is looking tired and he knows that it’s not only the white land thieves who think he has been a complete disaster as head of state. My guess is that he will hand over the crown after the election and go off to enjoy his billions. And if you thought South Africa was corrupt under Jacob Zuma then, in the immortal words of the song, “baby, you aint seen nothin’ yet”.