Reclaim SA from the mafia

IT took three prominent current and former politicians to show all of us that we can save this country one decision at a time. I am referring to Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan, former MP Vytjie Mentor and now, sensationally, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas, who this week confessed that, indeed, he was offered a full ministerial post by members of the Gupta family.

This took place at a Sandton hotel just before then Nhlanhla Nene was controversially excused from his position as finance minister, apparently because he had been a threat to some unscrupulous business people who saw him as a wall between them and undue financial prosperity.

The events of the last few days have been long coming.

South Africans are a great society, not perfect in any way, as no nation ever is, but we still have people of great integrity who are not going to let this country fall into junk status when there’s something they can do about it. The three politicians, not forgetting another former MP, Barbara Hogan, have once again shown us that South Africa can be saved from the approaching collapse.

The Guptas are naturalised South Africans with just over 22 years in the country and they came at a time when the coast was clearing politically as the democratic government was about to emerge. That was a good business de- cision on their part because things were certainly looking up for South Africa as we had managed to do what few countries could hope to achieve, a bloodless transition to a new dispensation.

But little did we know that with the Guptas coming to South Africa they would later develop an interest in hijacking a country and actually even trying to buy it. We are a country that, like others, is open to foreign nationals in good standing to come and do business and even consider it home afterwards, but this family came to a point whereby they saw themselves as better and bigger than anyone. With their uncomfortably close relationship with President Jacob Zuma, they seemed to be controlling everything about him. They took over from the equally controversial Schabir Shaik, a former Zuma financial adviser who served time in jail.

For a long time most leaders in the ANC have rebuffed any Zuma/Gupta allegations as, wait for it, “political point-scoring by nameless and shameless opposition”. But that is now a thing of the past as courageous current and former ANC leaders are coming out to shame the Guptas and their puppet president, who doesn’t seem to have ever taken a decision on his own in his entire political life.

It would seem that the day the Guptas captured him from a shamed Shaik, they then controlled his every decision, even telling potential ministers of their potential appointments while he giggled in another room. I mean, if that is not a clear indication of us turning into a banana state, then I don’t know what would convince you.

It is time for ANC principals to rein in Zuma before the final payment for this country is received from the Guptas. How can the ANC of Nelson Mandela, Moses Mabhida and Oliver Tambo, among other such greats, allow itself to become the laughing stock of Africa? You should hear conversations between South Africans and nationals from elsewhere in Africa. They tell us that we cannot call ourselves the continent’s superpower if we are being run by a family in Saxonwold, when our president is being used like a toy.

We need an ANC of courageous leaders like Mentor, Jonas and others who are fast coming out against the economic capture of our country by a family. We need an ANC that will vehemently tell the Guptas that their time is over and that whatever they have amassed as a result of their close relations with the president is taken back with immediate effect.

A lot of blood was shed for South Africa to be where it is today and allowing a family from a foreign country to own us is insulting to those who lost their lives for us to be here.

It is time for us to see Zuma for who he is, a compromised leader who has allowed this country to fall close to junk status, thanks to his decisions, or indecisions.

He must answer to the NEC of the ANC, the highest decision-making body of the party, over the weekend. And this time around, he may as well tell the nation that he is excusing himself from being the head of this country because he has failed the people of this country with distinction.

Let’s reclaim our country back from the clutches of the mafia.

‘ Courageous current and former ANC leaders are coming out to shame the Guptas and their puppet president