Thought for the day

PERFECT people? No.

Perfect messes? You bet.

Yet God used them. A surprising and welcome discovery of the Bible is this: God uses failures.

Max Lucado

ISAW a very interesting thing on web this week. It was about a white family staying in Kimberley but living in a tent somewhere in Minerva Gardens.

It was written in a very “ag shame, let us all feel sorry for them” type of way.

Is it the publication and the journalist’s way of saying Kimberley residents should feel sorry for them just because they are white?

I have just re-read the story again and nowhere does the couple say that they are actually actively looking for employment to get themselves out of the situation they currently find themselves in.

Instead, they carry on about how they have been from pillar to post to try and find alternative accommodation.

Also, according to the story, when people reported these white squatters to the municipal authorities – a very upright and honourable thing to do – they were offered a shanty in the township which they could pay off. This they refused.

Seriously?

A couple of months ago we had the same situation in the middle of town where a couple of squatters also erected tents. They were summarily removed.

Now, the glaring question here is why were they removed and not these ones?

I do not understand the thinking of the squatters in Minerva Gardens and also I do not know the finer details of the reasoning of them being put out of the caravan park where they were staying.

Obviously there must have been a reason and we can’t judge unless we have all the facts.

A lot has been written about white squatter camps around South Africa. According to a British news site there are approximately 80 white squatter camps dotted around South Africa.

Yes, I understand that a lot of white people have fallen on hard times and people are forced to provide shelter for themselves and family no matter what.

However, we as South Africans need to start looking at the bigger picture.

No matter what, we are always going to have a squatter problem in our country.

In 1994, if memory serves correctly, for the ANC to get the vote residents were promised free housing, health care and education.

It has now been 24 years and residents still don’t have housing. Some don’t have access to basic services which is testament to the amount of protest action our Province has been experiencing recently.

Now, after all this time questions are being asked through the inquiry into state capture what happened to the money that was supposed to provide housing, health care services, education, running water and electricity to South African residents.

However, the most glaring aspect of all of this is that our “in crises” Sol Plaatje Municipality is doing nothing about this recent squatting incident or, in fact, nothing to provide services to the citizens of Kimberley.

Instead they close up shop and award themselves salary increases.

Instead of allowing the illegal squatting to continue on municipal land, provide them with houses and allow businesses who want to purchase the land to develop it to have it. Well, not have it but be in a position to purchase it and they will also be more than likely be able to employ those who desperately need employment to provide a proper roof over their heads.

I told my landlady this week that if we ever get into an argument that I will take my things and go. She just needs to lend me a tent I can erect on a prime piece of land.

Hopefully I will also be made the generous offer of a shanty which will give me a fighting chance to one day be the proud owner of my own RDP house. WHILE EFF leader Julius Malema was threatening Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene over his interactions with the Guptas, the words of another character came to mind.

In March 2016, then social development minister Bathabile Dlamini made her now infamous remarks about fellow ANC members who dared to speak out in public – “we all have smallanyana skeletons”.

The Russians have coined a phrase for smallanyana skeletons: “kompromat” (compromising material), the threat of propaganda against political enemies. Fast forward to this week, Malema’s cryptic clues posted on social media about Nene had all the hallmarks of kompromat.

The EFF promised to “expose” Nene, demanding he resign, ostensibly for failing to answer its questions about his Gupta links.

The EFF claims the Guptas had recommended Nene as finance minister; when he refused to entertain them, they moved on, first to Mcebisi Jonas, then to Des van Rooyen.

By now we know Nene had several meetings with the Guptas, the last of which was in 2014, while he was deputy finance minister and Public Investment Corporation board chairman.

The next year, former president Jacob Zuma approached Nene as finance minister, about Treasury guarantees for PetroSA. When he rebuffed the offer, Zuma raised the issue of “apartheid-era spies inside Treasury”. A month later, an “intelligence report” was leaked – a regular chain of events under Zuma.

By the time Nene was asked to sign the R1 trillion Russian nuclear deal in December 2015, and again refused, Van Rooyen was installed, and four days later replaced by Pravin Gordhan.

Malema’s modus operandi almost matches Zuma’s: threaten to release compromising material about perceived enemies.

Instead of tweeting, Malema should perhaps testify under oath in Parktown.

His wild claims can then be tested; don’t hold your breath.