Promising future blighted

BRIAN Molefe, one of the most capable and competent black South Africans who became the poster boy for the state capture and corruption project, is in limbo, without a job.

It will be difficult for him to try to convince even the dumbest person in South Africa that he is innocent of all the allegations and accusations directed at him.

History will judge him harshly for having been used as a conduit, and allegedly being party to the wanton and flagrant looting of our country’s valuable assets.

To see a man with his level of education being reduced to an alleged small-time crook was disappointing to those of us who admired and supported him as he climbed the corporate ladder.

The unscrupulous political traitors who encouraged him on his path to self-destruction failed to protect him in the ANC national executive meeting, when it mattered most for him.

Molefe’s negligent behaviour was fuelled by the knowledge that nothing could happen to him and his pals.

They thought that they were well protected from any form of accountability.

He and those who were on his side were working outside the parameters of the law and the constitution.

They could do whatever they liked, because the ANC’s corrupt faction was on their side.

The rapid movement of Molefe from one influential post to the other was all done to entrench a mafia-style network.

Molefe, in his greed for money and power, and his gullibility, thought that people would be forever scared to voice their disgust of what they saw, the wanton abuse of our resources.

It was a mistake to believe that the people would remain docile and ignorant of what was happening around them forever.

Molefe will go down in our history as the post-Polokwane era personification of political sleaze, vice, lawlessness, shameless conduct and the denigration of the South African nation in the eyes of the world.

He may have been a perfect selection for the Gupta family, however, he was a disaster for our country.

He is a disgraceful example that should never be emulated by our young people.

Judging how pathetic all those who pledge loyalty to the Gupta family are, it is clear that they handpick the weakest among our people, including our president, who appear to be full time under the Gupta network.

Surely, it is to expect too much from those of us who fought so hard to wrestle our country away from the clutches of the National Party’s racial oppression and economic exploitation to go along with the programme of selling our country to a group of parasitic foreigners.

The ANC, I mean all of those who supported President Jacob Zuma’s political misdemeanours, should drop their heads in shame for allowing themselves to be so badly used against their own country and people.

They clapped hands and danced when Zuma said the ANC came first.

They gullibly believed the president’s flimsy stories and excuses about wasteful state expenditure at Nkandla.

They saw nothing wrong with the Guptas landing their civilian plane at our military base.

They continued to believe that all the criticism was stemming from what they call the liberal voices or agents of foreign countries.

How could they not see that the issues of Nkandla, the air base landing and the influence of the Guptas were not mere figments in the minds of “opposition”?

While they were castigating their fellow citizens, the Gupta family was making serious strides in taking over the South African state politically and economically.

Their first mission was to build their empire in South Africa with the development money of the country.

They allegedly duped or colluded with our leaders to suck up the taxpayers’ money to pay for them to own their own newspaper and television channel.

The ownership of the media became the most convenient and effective launching pad for the Guptas to set their sights on all the strategic sectors of the economy.

Their proximity to the president placed them in an enviable position allegedly to raid state assets, such as Eskom, Transnet, Denel and the SABC.

To make their lives as comfortable as possible, we know that they handpicked one of Zuma’s son to partner them in many of their allegedly criminal endeavours.

Molefe was being shifted from one strategic institution to the other, as the Guptas were cherry-picking at the top of both the private and public sector’s most profitable assets.

The Public Investment Company (PIC), Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and other development funding agencies of the country became the piggy banks to fund the expanding Gupta commercial empire.

Some of us were most baffled by the Guptas’ funding proposal for a disastrous dairy project in the Free State.

One analyst told me the Gupta cows were going to produce 270l of milk a day each.

As a farm boy who milked cows in the Tsitsikamma dairy area in the 1970s, before massive mechanism was introduced, we battled to produce 10l per cow per day.

Even with improved methods of production there is no yield even remotely close to the 270l a day, the basis upon which the funding was obtained.

How the Guptas managed to get that funding shows the extend of the rot on the part of those who rule us.

Even if the Guptas were partnering with the sons of Zuma and Free State premier Ace Magashule, this was blatant plundering of national resources – R570-million was squandered on this ill-fated project.

Radical economic transformation in a country gripped by a blight of corruption is a pipe dream.

Corruption impedes development and polarises society.

Some in the ANC are seeing the light at long last, and thanks to the valiant men and women who stood up to save our country from these marauding scavengers, such as personified by the life of Brian Molefe.