By JUSTICE MALALA
There is a lot to digest in the aftermath of what happened in Tshwane last week. It will take a long time to process all the themes. But here are some of my thoughts, randomly focusing on various failures of this sorry episode. We need to understand what happened to ensure it does not happen again.
Follow the money
Who benefits from the chaos that was unleashed by members of the ANC this past week in Tshwane? Why would people be so obsessed – to the point of killing fellow human beings and their own comrades and destroying their own infrastructure – with ensuring that one person stays in power?
It is because these are people who fear a change in regime will bring about the closing of the corruption tap. They will do anything to keep their snouts in the trough. They will kill, they will destroy, they will maim the innocent. These are people who have no skills, no talent. A loss of power by their chosen leader means the end of their livelihoods.
A grouping that has benefited from municipal tenders in Tshwane, particularly those who run a public works programme that hires young people at about R80 a day to clean the streets of the city, told these young people to unleash the havoc that took place last week or else they would lose their jobs if Mayor Kgosientsho Ramokgopa was ejected.
This operation, known as “Vat Alles”, has been responsible for chaos in other parts of Tshwane. It is now a killing force, deployed to force through a small elite’s wishes through violence.
If police follow this programme they will get to the ultimate kingpin of the violence last week.
The police come late if they come at all
How could the intelligence services and the SA Police Services not know what was about to happen in Tshwane?
Last Saturday, State Security Minister David Mahlobo was in Tshwane, swanning around and talking to ANC branch leaders. Why? His intelligence officers should have been on the ground sniffing out what was happening.
On Sunday evening, when ANC members shot and killed each other at the Tshwane Events Centre, where were Mahlobo’s “intelligence” agents? During the week, pictures appeared in the media of Mahlobo swanning about in Mabopane and other parts. What does he think he is exactly? A celebrity? Where, crucially, were his spies? Nowhere to be found.
Don’t be fooled by the arrests made. The police have arrested the low-level, drug-addled looters. The masterminds?
I was in Tshwane on Friday and, believe me, I am told they are living the life and laughing their way to the next lucrative position.
The events of the past week are about a failure of policing and of intelligence. Police stood by and did nothing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Why?
Ask residents of Mamelodi, Atteridgeville, Mabopane and Hammanskraal and you will hear the same thing – the police helped loot many spaza shops. The protectors have become the criminals.
The truth lost in the fire
Thoko Didiza is one of the most upstanding, fair, competent, principled and capable people the ANC has deployed in any capacity since 1994. She is honest, straight and true. Ask any Member of Parliament who has worked with her in any capacity – from the miniscule PAC and Azapo, straight through to the Democratic Alliance – and they will tell you just how fair and competent she is.
She is not perfect, of course, but in choosing her as a Tshwane mayoral candidate, the ANC’s leadership did the party’s terrible campaign in that municipality a huge favour.
Sadly, those within the ANC who sought to undermine her used tribalism, sexism and slander to run her down. This is the tragedy of the ANC today.
A great candidate has been undermined, and the party will be the one to suffer. Given their anti-democratic actions this week, the ANC’s Tshwane leadership deserves to lose. They cannot be trusted with leading our capital city.
Where was the ANC leadership?
Crucially, where was President Jacob Zuma? Look, some of us have given up on Zuma ever showing any kind of spine. The man is not a leader. Yet one expects him to at least pretend to care for the nation. Yet, this past week, his voice was nowhere to be found. Instead, Tshwane leaders ran around being ineffectual. Failure of leadership creates a void.
And so the people who were in leadership this past week were those who started the fire and nurtured it into the firestorm we saw.
The fire in Tshwane raged for four days because Zuma and his senior leaders were nowhere to be found. When their people needed them, they were silent, hiding from their responsibilities.
We are neither safe nor secure under their leadership. I have no doubt we will see more violence in Tshwane and other parts of South Africa due to ANC in-fighting and contestation for positions.
Will our leaders, our police services, our intelligence services be ready and prepared?
As Tshwane fire raged, SAPS, Zuma did nothing
There is a lot to digest in the aftermath of what happened in Tshwane last week. It will take a long time to process all the themes. But here are some of my thoughts, randomly focusing on various failures of this sorry episode. We need to understand what happened to ensure it does not happen again.
Follow the money
Who benefits from the chaos that was unleashed by members of the ANC this past week in Tshwane? Why would people be so obsessed – to the point of killing fellow human beings and their own comrades and destroying their own infrastructure – with ensuring that one person stays in power?
It is because these are people who fear a change in regime will bring about the closing of the corruption tap. They will do anything to keep their snouts in the trough. They will kill, they will destroy, they will maim the innocent. These are people who have no skills, no talent. A loss of power by their chosen leader means the end of their livelihoods.
A grouping that has benefited from municipal tenders in Tshwane, particularly those who run a public works programme that hires young people at about R80 a day to clean the streets of the city, told these young people to unleash the havoc that took place last week or else they would lose their jobs if Mayor Kgosientsho Ramokgopa was ejected.
This operation, known as “Vat Alles”, has been responsible for chaos in other parts of Tshwane. It is now a killing force, deployed to force through a small elite’s wishes through violence.
If police follow this programme they will get to the ultimate kingpin of the violence last week.
The police come late if they come at all
How could the intelligence services and the SA Police Services not know what was about to happen in Tshwane?
Last Saturday, State Security Minister David Mahlobo was in Tshwane, swanning around and talking to ANC branch leaders. Why? His intelligence officers should have been on the ground sniffing out what was happening.
On Sunday evening, when ANC members shot and killed each other at the Tshwane Events Centre, where were Mahlobo’s “intelligence” agents? During the week, pictures appeared in the media of Mahlobo swanning about in Mabopane and other parts. What does he think he is exactly? A celebrity? Where, crucially, were his spies? Nowhere to be found.
Don’t be fooled by the arrests made. The police have arrested the low-level, drug-addled looters. The masterminds?
I was in Tshwane on Friday and, believe me, I am told they are living the life and laughing their way to the next lucrative position.
The events of the past week are about a failure of policing and of intelligence. Police stood by and did nothing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Why?
Ask residents of Mamelodi, Atteridgeville, Mabopane and Hammanskraal and you will hear the same thing – the police helped loot many spaza shops. The protectors have become the criminals.
The truth lost in the fire
Thoko Didiza is one of the most upstanding, fair, competent, principled and capable people the ANC has deployed in any capacity since 1994. She is honest, straight and true. Ask any Member of Parliament who has worked with her in any capacity – from the miniscule PAC and Azapo, straight through to the Democratic Alliance – and they will tell you just how fair and competent she is.
She is not perfect, of course, but in choosing her as a Tshwane mayoral candidate, the ANC’s leadership did the party’s terrible campaign in that municipality a huge favour.
Sadly, those within the ANC who sought to undermine her used tribalism, sexism and slander to run her down. This is the tragedy of the ANC today.
A great candidate has been undermined, and the party will be the one to suffer. Given their anti-democratic actions this week, the ANC’s Tshwane leadership deserves to lose. They cannot be trusted with leading our capital city.
Where was the ANC leadership?
Crucially, where was President Jacob Zuma? Look, some of us have given up on Zuma ever showing any kind of spine. The man is not a leader. Yet one expects him to at least pretend to care for the nation. Yet, this past week, his voice was nowhere to be found. Instead, Tshwane leaders ran around being ineffectual. Failure of leadership creates a void.
And so the people who were in leadership this past week were those who started the fire and nurtured it into the firestorm we saw.
The fire in Tshwane raged for four days because Zuma and his senior leaders were nowhere to be found. When their people needed them, they were silent, hiding from their responsibilities.
We are neither safe nor secure under their leadership. I have no doubt we will see more violence in Tshwane and other parts of South Africa due to ANC in-fighting and contestation for positions.
Will our leaders, our police services, our intelligence services be ready and prepared?
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