Hogarth
Lumka khulumas her way out of answering
SOME blame it on Xolani Gwala’s baritone. Hearing that silky voice must have sent Lumka Oliphant back to the good old days when Xolani wasn’t Kholani and he hosted a Zulu-medium show called Asikhulume
— Let’s Talk on a government-friendly SABC TV station. So she “khuluma(ed)” but Gwala is on 702 now and so he could only talk.
Now Lumka, the social development ministerial spokeswoman who sometimes acts as if she is deputy to Her Voice, is lauded as a heroine by the self-proclaimed anti-white monopoly capital crusaders who say she bravely took on English’s cultural imperialism.
But Hogarth has a sneaking suspicion that her gimmick had everything to do with fear that her answers to the questions would contradict her boss’s boss — no, not No 1 — Net1’s Serge Belamant, who had been on radio minutes before her.
Show up, sit down
LUMKA’S boss, minister Bathabile Dlamini, took political pundits by surprise when she actually showed up at the meeting of the standing committee on public accounts. She had stood up Scopa in the past and few thought she would show her face before a committee whose members are so critical of her work.
But soon after addressing the meeting, and without answering any questions, she asked to be excused — saying she had a cabinet meeting to attend.
The EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi was having none of it. “This is not a church. You can’t just preach and then leave and we say amen,” he shouted. “You will sit there and account,” he directed. She complied, grudgingly so.
Fly away, Sis’ Batha
BUT if Sis’ Batha thought Scopa was a frying pan, Hogarth hears that the cabinet was a fire. With No 1 still out talking “the oceans economy” in Jakarta, Indonesia, members of the cabinet were free to ask some tough questions of their colleague and her handling of the social grants debacle.
Maybe next time No 1 goes abroad, Sis’ Batha must ask that he takes her along so she can avoid the opposition in parliament and the other opposition, in the cabinet.
O ye of little Faith
SHAME, another one of Baba’s favourite ministers not feeling the love from parliament is Communications Minister Faith Muthambi. She has now headed to the courts — presumably hoping to find a “progressive judge” — to complain that she was “ambushed” by MPs during a hearing into the SABC debacle.
Muthambi claimed in a letter to Speaker Baleka Mbete that the ad hoc committee set up to investigate the SABC was conducting “a witch-hunt against myself in order to satisfy [the] political agenda of certain individuals”.
She would not say who the “individuals” were, but Hogarth would not be surprised if she named fellow ANC MPs. With the ANC caucus so divided, it is difficult to tell who is in power and who in opposition.
What a sickly lot
THERE appears to be some dreadful illness spreading through government departments — but only the ones that are in a spot of trouble.
Sassa, whose CEO has been booked off with hypertension, has just appointed an acting acting CEO because its acting CEO appears to have also taken ill.
This week, Justice Minister Michael Masutha took ill just before having to appear in parliament to explain the International Criminal Court debacle, and Transport Minister Dipuo Peters was also ill and couldn’t make it to parliament to discuss the Prasa saga.
Hogarth hopes the government medical aid is prepared for the onslaught of claims.
Sheriff is still in town
EVERYONE who is supposed to know these things knows that, as far as political personalities are concerned, there are only two superstars in Durban: No 1 and The General, Bheki Cele.
But one unemployed Hlaudi Motsoeneng has been trying very hard of late to make the Banana City his stomping ground. Realising that the Durban kraal is too small for three bulls, The General took matters into his own hands on Friday when he heard that the selfproclaimed “intellectual” was in town.
Like a feared sheriff going after a known delinquent, he made a grand entrance at a University of KwaZulu-Natal lecture hall where Motsoeneng was speaking. Motsoeneng had to stop what he was saying mid-sentence as the room erupted into chants of “Ndosi, Ndosi, Ndosi [Cele’s clan name]”.
Clad in a dark suit and sporting his favourite black hat, Ndosi looked satisfied with himself as he sauntered to his seat.
See, Hlaudi, you are not the only popular clown in town.