Five questions for Cyril

CONGRATULATIONS on your election as president of the oldest liberation movement in Africa, the ANC.

I am sure you are well aware of the challenges facing you as the ANC’s new leader and we wish you and your new team well as you go about addressing them.

I write to you on behalf of the South Africa First Forum, a civil activist group that was formed more than one-and-a-half years ago to empower ordinary South Africans to get their voices back and “speak truth to power” as we say enough is enough to the looting of our country and the mismanagement thereof.

We wish to have a better South Africa, governed by accountable leaders.

We are a non-partisan group of ordinary civilians who are agitating for a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and corruption-free society, as struggled for by our founding fathers and mothers like Oliver Tambo, Dullah Omar, Joe Slovo, Helen Joseph, Reg September, Nelson Mandela, Mrs Bardien, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others.

I am sure you have seen some of us outside the gates of Parliament as you drove in with your motorcade on a Thursday afternoon around 1pm.

As the convener of this group of patriotic South Africans, I wish to ask you these five questions:

1. When will you instruct the president of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma, who is a deployee of the ANC, to immediately institute a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture, as decreed by the public protector and confirmed by our courts?

2. When will you as deputy president of South Africa appoint a new director of public prosecutions, as directed by the courts?

3. Should any evidence emerge of corruption linked to any of those who are part of the ANC’s top six leaders or NEC, or in the cabinet or any other state entity, what will you do about it and how soon will you act?

4. Mindful of their independence, will you have a meeting with the commissioner of Sars, the NDPP, the commissioner of the SAPS and the public protector to instruct them to do their jobs properly, speedily and without fear or favour in order to recover the trust of the South African public – thereby finally empowering citizens to “speak truth to power”?

5. For how long will you tolerate Mr Zuma (who has been an unmitigated disaster) continuing to serve as

South Africa’s president, as an ANC deployee?

We wish you well and trust that we can work with you to pull South Africa back from the brink.

We would appreciate it if you would report back to us within 30 days of the date of this letter.

Regards, and have a merry Christmas.