Shameless ANC washes its hands

For shell-shocked ordinary South Africans, nothing the ANC does shocks us any longer. That’s just the way this party – perhaps criminal association might be more accurate – rolls. It was no surprise, therefore, to read about how the “personal messenger” for Eastern Cape Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba, ANC Youth League regional task team member Ayanda Matinise, was caught by the King William’s Town police and charged with transporting alcohol in a state vehicle. Matinise also apparently tried to bribe the arresting cops.

It’s an incident not dissimilar to the clear lack of social distancing and excess numbers evident in the number of mourners who thronged the Soweto house of fallen ANC stalwart Andrew Mlangeni last week.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula had scorn heaped on him after he said there were only 10 people outside the house. And, let’s not forget Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, who was bust right at the beginning of the lockdown having a social lunch and then trying to pass it off as official business.

All of this while the ANC continues to clasp its hands around the throats of South Africans with the Covid-19 lockdown regulations. It’s clearly a case of: don’t do what I do, do what I say.

All the while, more and more allegations seep out about the shameless enrichment from Covid-19 emergency money – from providing water tanks to schools, to the supply of personal protective equipment to frontline health workers.

Now, there is the sleazy case of Malusi Gigaba’s wife, Norma, picked up by The Hawks – our most important crime fighting team, supposedly – on charges of assault and malicious damage to property. It’s like being in the middle of an awful soap opera… a soap opera in which former minister Nomvula Moknoyane’s daughter gets the tender for supplying the soap, as she did in real life.