THE WEEK IN WORDS
We have been aware of at least half of the claims in Pauw’s book. Go read that book, because it is telling the truth. In fact, South Africans should stand up because if this thing is not dealt with, our country is going, not only for us as leaders, but also for you as citizens. – Former higher education minister Blade Nzimande calls on SACP supporters to read Jacques Pauw’s book, The President’s Keepers, at a rally in Clermont, near Pinetown.
Officially no one has called it a coup yet; even the generals themselves are not calling it a coup yet, but that is what it is. So the issue is how do you return the country to constitutional normalcy? – A senior diplomat in Pretoria on events in Zimbabwe this week.
We were ill-disciplined. Those penalties hurt us. In the northern hemisphere three points are like a score… they’re an important event. We didn’t realise penalties would hurt us so much. – Springbok coach Allister Coetzee after the team’s 38-3 defeat to Ireland in Dublin last Saturday.
(State capture) was a scheme not with a lot of brains behind it, because we are untangling it now. I think we woke up too late to it. – Part of Eskom spokesperson Khulani Qoma’s statement to the portfolio committee on public enterprises enquiry into state capture.
Every night I pray I get justice. Every single night, I say, ‘God,
give me justice’. – Vinod Hindocha, father of Anni Dewani, who was shot dead in Cape Town in 2010. Dewani would have turned 35 this year. Dewani’s husband, British businessman Shrien Dewani, was acquitted of her murder in 2014.
We currently have 65 cemeteries and altogether we have 550 000 grave sites. In these grave sites we have close to 1.8 million remains, with some graves housing up to four bodies each. – eThekwini Municipality’s cemeteries boss Thembinkosi Ngcobo explaining that grave sites were expected to run out by the end of the year.
What is happening today is that the government, elected to act accordingly and support and promote law and order and constitutional rule…it has itself become a thief that steals. – Nelson Mandela Foundation chairman Professor Njabulo Ndebele addressing the ANC consultative conference organised by the party’s stalwarts and veterans.