The price you pay for thieving, Ace

There’s an old joke that a good thief will steal the milk out of your tea … and come back later for the sugar. This comes to mind with the news that the ANC – the party which brought SA state capture in its various guises – wants its members to fork out R50 a month so the organisation never again falls victim to state capture.

Even in the theatre of the absurd of modern-day South Africa, this particular piece of political chutzpah would take the cake … had the cake not already been stolen and sliced up among the comrades. But, wait folks, there’s more. One of the protagonists of this purer-than-pure funding mechanism was ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, under whose watch as Free State premier, more than R300 million of taxpayers’ money was looted and sent abroad by the Gupta family and their henchman in the Estina dairy farm scandal.

Magashule was exposed to the funding idea on a trip to Turkey, where the mechanism is used to bankroll President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party.

The idea is that the potential R50 million a month that the donations will raise will fund the ANC – so it does not feel obligated to business interests.

Here’s a question, Ace: will it be tax-deductible?