MEME OF THE WEEK
This took place at a time when the SABC was cash-strapped, under its former head Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who was later sent off in disgrace. She was seen as a Motsoeneng ally. He promoted her rapidly, and her salary jumped to R1.5-million a year. Still not enough, obviously.
Full of holes
The National Prosecuting Authority is a bit miffed, having suffered a setback in its newfound determination to prosecute cases of state capture. It was told on Monday by the high court in Bloemfontein that the R250million’s worth of Gupta assets it had had frozen, in the course of its probe into the Estina Dairy scam, had to be thawed. The reason given was that the state had not made a sufficiently watertight case to convince the judge that a conviction of those accused of purloining the money would succeed.
Passport puzzle persists
The mystery of how Gupta family members were naturalised and managed to get so many passports (and so quickly) has not yet been solved, despite Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba’s attempts to explain. On Wednesday this past week, Parliament’s portfolio committee on home affairs expressed its dissatisfaction that the inquiry is going so slowly. The department of home affairs has not provided the committee with documents, and nor has the North West education department. The latter is involved because the Guptas allegedly made donations, which helped some of them to be naturalised, to schools in the region. Former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo may have had something to do with it, said committee chairperson Hlomani Chauke. He also wondered why the Gupta passports had not been cancelled, given they had now fled the country and were “fugitives” from the law. Good question, sir.
All that glitters
The KwaZulu-Natal village of KwaMachi near Harding is having a gold rush. Hundreds of people have descended on a quarry near the village to look for gold, and the mineral resources department says it will send officials there to check it out. The police unsuccessfully set up barriers of razor wire to stop the impromptu miners. The uMuziwabantu local municipality, in which the village is located, said that workers upgrading the main road in the area had found what appeared to be gold lodged in stones being used. No test has yet confirmed that it is, in fact, gold.