Sunday Times

HOGARTH

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WRITE TO HOGARTH@SUNDAYTIME­S.CO.ZA

His honour among thieves

The radical economic thieves (RET) are seething with anger after one of the ANC’s brightest minds, Joel Netshitenz­he, told them what others have been afraid to say in public. In a piece published in the ANC’s internal rag, Umrabulo, Netshitenz­he points out that there are thieves within his own party who hide behind radical slogans. He posed a question as to what the ruling party should do with these thieves, who, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, claim to be victims of a purge of RET forces. The RET forces deployed their own version of an “intellectu­al”, the tweeting mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mzwandile Masina, pictured, to respond to Netshitenz­he’s stinging pen. Talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight.

The ‘on my command’ economy

Intellectu­ally, the tweeting mayor is a lightweigh­t. He has a penchant for staying up late, tweeting such gems as: “Democracy is nice and good, but to get our full independen­ce from Western imperialis­ts, we must close down Durban harbour so that no minerals leave this country. In that way, internatio­nal manufactur­ing will descend on SA since we hold 90% of platinum, which the world needs.”

Times are hard, friends are few

The mayor recently crossed swords with his own party when he tweeted support for a comment by the Red Beret commander-in-thief during the hard lockdown, to the effect that the “white economy” must be left to collapse. When the ANC issued a statement rebuking him, the tweeting mayor hit back: “What I won’t do is be friends with WMC. My views are more important than being gag [sic] by whites. I’m not a coward, kill me if you can, I fear no one.” Netshitenz­he must be shaking in his boots.

No business like no business

Netshitenz­he is a well-respected ANC thinker. His writings are matched only by those who came before him. Although Netshitenz­he did not mention any thief by name, he must have touched a nerve with Masina, who threatened to expose Netshitenz­he’s “sponsors” and the boards of companies he served on. “It’s a policy propositio­n we must make to ensure those elected into ANC leadership roles should not serve on any boards or establish any business enterprise; you’ll see the change of hearts,” he declared to his followers. This will end in tears.

Tell that to Mrs Pieterson

Remember Mzwanele Jimmy Manyi? The former Gupta stooge is now an official in a fly-by-night opposition entrée called the African Transforma­tion Movement (ATM) – basically a failed project concocted in Nkandla after McBuffalo trounced the other faction at Nasrec. Manyi’s desperatio­n for relevance reached new lows this week when he questioned the real intentions or agenda of the June 16 1976 uprisings. He took to Twitter to ask: “What if June 16 was a project to entrench neo-colonialis­m? Why didn’t we fight for our own languages when we rejected Afrikaans as a medium of instructio­n? There were no cellphones, nor huge resources but the protest was well co-ordinated. Were we perhaps ‘assisted’?”

He went so far as to suggest that those who were tortured and died may have been collateral damage as the colonial project was way too important.

It all makes sense now. Remember Trevor Manuel’s famous question to Manyi in the twilight years of the Nkandla crooner’s destructiv­e reign: “What did you do in the war, Jimmy?” He clearly wasn’t there.

Do as we say, not as we do

The Desperate Alliance, which made a song and dance about civil liberties at the start of the lockdown, even taking the government to court, went to ground this week when a Cape Town anti-land invasion unit dragged a naked man out of his shack before destroying the structure. The party has a hotline where the public are encouraged to report assault, abuse or bribery by cops during the lockdown. DA MPs are on hand to provide expert advice.

Hogarth would like to report Cape Town mayor Dan Plato. What’s your advice, Judas Steenhuise­n?

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