GOOD LORD DESMOND TUTU IS BEING REMEMBERED ON TV DURING HIS FUNERAL AMONG SOME OF THE MOST GRUESOME TRUE CRIMES IMAGINABLE

 Dear Readers,

         Is what DStv has been doing acceptable or in very bad taste?

         In its enthusiasm to honour Tutu it has put an RIP message on the top right hand side of the picture on a few of its channels. But the BIG QUESTION IS: Was it acceptable to have the name of this revered Bishop associated with True Crime murderers of women and children, serial killers and just about every other kind of horror story imaginable?

         On its 171 Discovery ID channel we are being shown blood curdling stories with titles like American Monster and The Lake Erie Murders. If these are not enough to scare the hell out of you there is Death North about a couple suspected of cutting up a guy and cooking him for lunch. For a bit of light relief In Pursuit with John Walsh tells us about how a doctor specialised in sexually molesting his female patients.

         All these have this message for the Arch on them: RIP Desmond Tutu 1931-2021.

From "Evil Lives here"

         I flicked through the various other channels at random and very few had this Tutu message on them.  Every business thrives on attracting attention, but is this the best way of doing it at a time of the world mourning for our one and only Arch? I don’t think so.

         When Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 I can’t believed that he would have been able to maintain his renowned sense of humour if DStv had chosen to keep repeating this in amongst the terror and debauchery that are on the channel where his RIP keeps popping up now.

         “You may have a point but we took a decision to pay tribute to him across our channels irrespective of what is being broadcast,” Calvo Mawela the CEO of MultiChoice, the owners of DStv told me. “I think he deserves to be remembered across the platform and it will be a reminder of good over evil.”

         Tragically no amount of prayers or anything else it seems are able to curb South Africa’s own TRUE CRIME which is spiraling out of control.

         Having done so much to oppose the White Apartheid Government Tutu must have been terribly disappointed with its replacement. It’s Black alright but so corrupt that every semblance of a modern society is collapsing around it to the detriment of most of us while the fats cats with their hands in the National till go unpunished.

Cyril hasn't always been blind
folded but he might as well
 have been

         In his ivory tower our President Cyril Ramaphosa keeps mum, just as he did when he sat beside the corrupt Jacob Zuma when he was the President who sold the country to the Gupta brothers. Cyril was his deputy from 2014 to 2018.

         Resting in Peace does have its advantages particularly in South Africa right now. Go well Arch.

         Regards Jon

         P.S. Here's what Tutu had to say when I asked him to comment on my 2011 post about him being called a "Black Nazi Pig" when he visited Israel to investigate its human rights abuses against the Palestinians. "It's hilarious, barbed and very clever. Thanks for your piece on the on-going saga of being anti-Semitic when one points out wrongs of not Jewish people, but of the Israeli Government. Ah well. Love and blessings to you and your Gayle. Arch"

    
  

 

 

JOBS ADVERTISEMENTS TELL A STORY OF A BLOATED INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT WITH A SHADY SIDE

 Dear Readers,

William Hlakoane

          I get the Johannesburg based Sunday Times every week and it is noticeable in pages and pages of expensive career ads that the private sector, which is supposed to be the driving force behind South Africa’s economic recovery hardly features at all. They are mostly for positions in local and provincial government and state owned enterprises, where just about everyone seems to be a director or deputy director.

          The most recent one that I came across that turned out to be extremely dubious was for a Group Chief Executive Officer for Denel our government owned arms manufacturer that has virtually imploded with the help of the Guptas, as it is struggling to pay its staff.  The half page ad which cost around R100 000 appeared on Sunday February 21 with a closing date of 5 March.

First thing the following morning the Board headed by Monhla Hlahla announced that William Hlakoane, the current Chief Operating Officer had been appointed acting CEO for six months. Does she think that will be long enough to turn Denel around? Clearly he must have been the chosen one before the ad even appeared, so how legitimate is his appointment. Is it another jobs for the boys appointment? Don’t these, particularly high powered ones like this that involve a salary of several million a year, have to be properly advertised before someone is named?

The Board is still looking for a permanent head. Hlakoane, who replaced the interim CEO Talib Sadik whose contract expired, is the 9^th CEO or acting CEO since the ANC came to power in 1994. Sadik was the CEO some years ago.  To add to Denel’s problems 4 directors resigned in the last couple of months making things rather lonely for Hlahla, the former Airports Company of SA Chief Executive who became chairperson of the Denel Board in 2018. Airports to a high tech arms company is a very incongruous move. 

It’s seems it’s more important to waste a huge amount of money on an ad that was clearly place for show when a decision had already been made, than paying staff.  What the hell it’s only tax payer’s money so who cares.

Monhla Hlahla

Among the 12 Qualification and Experience Requirements in this Denel ad was: “Proven experience and exhibition of achievement in Business Turnaround Strategy Implementation” I find it difficult to believe that Hlakoane complied with this or some of the other ones on the list. 

          Another smelly ad was from the tiny municipality of Nkandla, a name made notorious by its high profile resident our former President Jacob Zuma. While in office he quite illegitimately had his homestead there upgraded with R246-million of our money.

          Although the municipality is surprisingly now controlled by the Inkatha Freedom Party,  as opposed to Zuma’s ruling African National Congress, it is following, in its small way, Zuma’s example of how to squander public funds.

          It’s ad for a General Worker at a salary of R9000 a month cost R10 520 for one insertion in the paper. It made no sense to spend this amount to place this in a national paper when there must be any number of people in Nkandla capable of making the tea and doing the cleaning and the job was for somebody at the bottom of the employment ladder.

          The ads also paint a dismal picture of municipalities and even provincial Governments like Mpumalanga that are still in the dark ages. Their job applications can only be submitted by post and with our broken postal service there must be a huge number of positions that remain vacant before any applications arrive. The last time I was sent a letter by post I got it three months later.

           The comical gobbledygook job descriptions for some of the highly paid jobs explain completely why our local government is in such a mess with numerous municipalities and the like under administration. For instance the Chris Hani District Municipality in the Eastern Cape wants a Director, Health and Community Services (5 year fixed performance contract, salary negotiable).

The following Competences are required:

·      Critical competences that drive the strategic intent and direction.

·      Core competences that drive the execution of critical competences.

·      Working in a team to advise Council & Committees.

          If this is what the ‘team’ produces heaven help the people in that area who rely on this humpty dumpty organisation. No faxed or emailed applications will be accepted. They had to send them to a Private Bag address or hand delivered them.       

          In a whole page ad that probably cost about half a million the Mpumalanga Provincial Government called for applications for 46 posts that included 3 Directors (R1 057 326 p.a.), 4 Deputy Directors (R733 257 p.a.), 4 Assistance Directors (R376 596 p.a.) and 16 cleaners at R102 234 p.a each. Helpfully would be career cleaners were told that the requirements included “Ability to work under pressure and to remain focused towards productivity” and a “Basic knowledge on utilization of cleaning equipment will be an added advantage.”

          Among the requirements for the Directors  was “Honesty and integrity.” They don’t seem to know that both words mean the same thing. This is evidently not necessary for anybody below the rank of Director because it doesn’t get mentioned again when HONESTY should be the number one requirement for anybody joining the public service. No wonder there are so many who don’t seem to have heard of it.

          The various departments have such little confidence in their abilities to pick the right person for the job that all the top salary earners are employed on 5 year contracts.  Is this the Government’s way of preventing top officials from remaining on suspension forever on huge salaries? Mind you even five years could cost the fiscus a fortune.

          The Employment Equity Act seems to be causing a great deal of confusion. Here are some interpretations.

          Magalies Water ad for a Chief Operations Office and Payroll Manager: “Preference will be given to African females, Coloured, Indians, White males and people living with disabilities.”

          City of Johannesburg ad for Group Human Capital Management: “This is an employment equity targeted position and preference will be given to African males, White males and African females and White females, including people with disabilities."

          National Gambling Board ad for a Researcher and a Legal and Stakeholder Engagement Intern at salaries of R12 000 a year – not much more than cleaners get: “In terms of the Employment Equity preference will be given to Coloureds, Indians, Whites and people with disabilities.”

          Nyandeni Local Municipality, Eastern Cape ad for a Senior Manager: Infrastructure Development: “Females, Coloureds, Indians, Whites and People with disabilities are encouraged to apply.”

          Most stated they abide by the Employment Equity act or did not comment on it at all.

 Regards,

Jon, a Consumer Watchdog and Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.

 P.S. Anybody who still believes that apartheid is dead does not live in South Africa. When are we going to grow up enough to be able to employ the best person for the job regardless of their colour?

 

 

             

New Age's Moegsien Williams & a Question of Morality

Dear South African Newspaper Readers,

         I want to share this with you although it concerns a question of morality I would love Moegsien Williams to answer.

         Last year Williams became the 4th editor of the fledgling and controversial, two year old New Age national, daily newspaper.  It is owned by the Gupta family which has been accused of benefiting substantially from their links with President Jacob Zuma and the ANC Government.

         It is keeping its circulation figures secret so it evidently has nothing to brag about and needs all the help it can get.

         It claims to focus on the positive side of news and to only make constructive criticism of our leaders. Could this be the definition of a government lap dog?  

         Ryland Fisher, the New Age editor who resigned after just 17 months to be replaced by Williams, said this of him: He is a respected name in South African journalism and it says something about the New Age that they can attract a person of his calibre.

         He certainly has a long and distinguished career on papers that would have been more likely to attack the South African government than to praise it. He has been the Editor in Chief of The Star, the flagship of the Independent Newspaper Group, and he was also in the hot seat at the Cape Argus, the Cape Times and the Pretoria News. His other achievements include being Chairman of the International Press Institute and Vice Chairman of the South African Editor’s Forum.

         With that kind of background it is hardly surprising that he was a member of the Press Council’s task team that last year compiled a 98 page report ostensible to improve South African journalism.

         But its real purposed appeared to be to tweak the existing Press Council’s mechanism so that the newspaper industry could go on policing itself in the face of mounting pressure from the Government to replace it with a statutory, media appeals tribunal.

         Not having read the report I can only assume that one of its aims was to also try and maintain the utmost integrity among journalists.

         So in view of Williams’ vast experience of newspapers and being an adviser to the Press Council, the question I want to ask him is this: If a freelance journalist submits a story to a paper he is editing, does he think it's morally right to print it under the byline of a member of his own staff?

         A couple of years ago The Star, which Williams was editing at the time, carried splash after splash about the horrific deeds of orthopaedic surgeon Dr Wynne Lieberthal. It was a huge story that I knew something about.

         I was a journalist, turned private business investigator, who looked into the doctor’s nefarious activities long before the stories about him broke in the media. My inquiries related to a life insurance scam so I had thoroughly researched the doctor.

         And having once worked for The Star as a reporter I gave it a report about Lieberthal, which was a development the paper had not yet cover.

        The story was used quite big but not with my byline on it. It was credited to a Star reporter who had done a lot of the previous reports on Lieberthal.

         My name was not mentioned anywhere as the author.

         I protested to the News Editor and other high up members of the staff to no avail. Eventually I emailed Williams complaining that his paper had ‘hijacked my story.’

         I got no reply from him. A senior editor merely assured me that I would still get paid for my efforts, but no apology of any kind was forthcoming.

         It would be nice if Mr Williams would now tell us all if this is the kind of morality he will be following at the New Age and whether he will continue his publication’s stated policy of only recording the positive side of life and only publishing constructive criticism of our leaders?

         Regards,

         Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

Note: I emailed this to Williams before I posted it and invited him to make any comments he wished. But as was the case when his paper hijacked my story I got no reply. It seems when journalists are in a corner they are as likely to remain silent as anybody else.

Mandela Money Scandal

Dear Poor People of South Africa,

         You may not know it but you are very much in the majority in this once first world country that your African National Congress Government has stuffed almost out of sight in just 18 years. So voting them out is the only way to improve your lot.

         All your leaders are good at is feathering their own nests and promising you houses and all kinds of services when they know they have no intention of providing them.

         It’s obvious to everyone except the fat cats in your Government that you have now had enough of broken promises, not to mention all the corruption that has seen the money that should have been spent on uplifting you being stolen on a massive scale.

         At various places all over the country you are trashing the place; setting fire to Government buildings and rampaging through the streets because you are so sick and tired of having your pleas for basic services ignored.

Monument to waste

         But still your blinkered Government won’t see or listen.

         It has just announced a new series of bank notes, none of which will do you any good. They have Nelson Mandela’s head on them which the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Gill Marcus claimed reflects South Africa’s pride as a nation and pays tribute to a much loved icon.

         What utter rubbish. They don’t pay tribute to him at all. They merely remind us of how his ANC Party has, in the 13 years since he stepped down as the country’s first black president, destroyed all that he stood for. 

         Even something as mundane as the issuing of these notes was a slap in the face for you poor people because the Reserve Bank decided to waste R32-million on a communications campaign for them.

         Yes that’s right R32-million. That could have built 700 or more decent houses for you people currently living in tin shacks, or it could have been used in other ways to better your lives.

         Had Nelson Mandela still been President instead of an ailing 94 year old do you think he would have wasted money like this on notes that everybody will have to use anyway, when so many of you are starving, without homes or jobs.

         And to mock Mandela’s legacy even further who do you think the Reserve Bank had posing for pictures to promote this icon’s image? None other than our current President Jacob Zuma and Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, both of whom have a record of appalling morality that is the very antithesis of what Mandela stood for.

         The two of them could not have done more to destroy everything that Nelson Mandela stood for.

Zuma a man to bank on

         Zuma, who became President in 2009, has the following achievements to put beside Mandela’s. He was acquitted of rape in 2005 and in the same year he was sacked as Deputy President by his predecessor after corruption allegations surfaced in connection with the country’s $5-billion weapons acquisition deal. Charges were dropped just in time for him to become president on the grounds that there had been political interference.

         Winnie’s CV sinks even deeper into the mire.  In 1991 she was convicted of kidnapping and assault after one of her apartheid activist, associates was murdered. On appeal her six year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two year suspended jail term. The 1997 Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that the abduction and murder by her body guards had been carried out on her instructions and that she had initiated and participated in assaults. But as far as the murder was concerned she had merely been negligent.

Gill Marcus & Winnie in the money

In 1994 she became Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture in the country’s first black government. Just 11 months later corruption allegations surfaced and she was dismissed. In 2003 she was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft and sentenced to five years in jail. She escaped being locked up once again on appeal when a Judge decided she should only get a three year suspended prison sentence because her crimes were not for personal gain.

 As a current ANC member of Parliament she earns nearly R800 000 a year, but is notorious for hardly ever attending Parliament. The Independent Electoral Commission allowed her to run in the 2009 general election despite her fraud conviction.

 Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that she had such a large following among you poor people that she was known as the Mother of the Nation and the ANC needed her vote catching ability.

It’s time you understood that South Africa has nothing to be proud of if these two are the best roll models the Reserve Bank could muster to launch the face of  Nelson Mandela.

Just what the R32-million will be spent on remains to be seen. But if history is anything to go by a lot of it could end up in the pockets of rich ANC big-wigs.

As sure as hell none of your protesting masses will see a cent of it.

Regards,

Jon, who intends sticking up one of the notes as a reminder of how not to run a country.

       

Literacy not required but Government to get 5% more

Dear South African Voters,

        Where in the world can you get a part-time job next to the beach that pays nearly R30 000 a month or R350 000 a year for only 20 hours work a week?
         Now they are expected to get a 5% increase.  

          Where can you get such a plumb job without being able to read or write?         
          In South Africa where else? And in picturesque Cape Town what’s more.

          Would you lend your car to somebody without a driving licence? Well that’s exactly what you voters are doing to our country. No wonder it’s in the ditch more often than not and the stage is fast approaching when there won’t be enough money to haul it out even for its scrap value.

          Sadly these words are wasted on a lot of you.

        Sadder still this is the deplorable standard we set for those who govern us.

          No wonder the African National Congress Government is not bothered about the edikasion sistam being in shimbles because with these kind of salaries who worries about schooling.

          We are a third, going on a fourth or fifth-world country with a population of 50-million.

          There are 400 members of Parliament. MPs get R800 000 a year while President Jacob Zuma and his bloated Cabinet get double that or more while at least a third of the adult population have no salary at all. Zuma’s standard of education is a State secret and who knows how many MPs would get a job anywhere else.

           Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the Mother of the nation proves the point. Flights to the moon occur more often than her appearances in the House.

          India, which has a population of more than a billion with around 200-million people in the A Income Group, has just over 800 MPs. Most of our A Income Group earners are in Government somewhere filling their boots.

          As the local government elections are coming up in South Africa it’s appropriate to talk about Councils. Take Cape Town, the only City controlled by the Democratic Alliance, as an example.

          It has 210 of these overpaid Councillors – more than half the number of the MPs who run the entire country - getting those salaries I mentioned to begin with. And the population is a mere 3-million.

          Tammy Petersen’s story in the Peoples Post opened my eyes to the way the spending splurge doesn’t end with ordinary Councillors. There’s the Mayor on over a million a year; his deputy taking home R789 355 and Mayoral Committee members and  sub-council chairmen each being paid R741 143. And there are 33 of these jackpot winners.

          And even some of these high rollers who are full-time employees can get permission to supplement their pittance by taking another job. That tells you just how diligently you have to work in a bureaucracy.

          A similar scenario is repeated at councils that are there to be plundered up and down the country. ANC supporters are fighting each other to be nominated for one of these, money for jam jobs where nobody has to account for anything.
           The country's Auditor-General's report for 2010/2011 gave a clean audit to a mere 13 of the 283 councils.. That's how bad it has got.

           It’s as though there’s been a gold strike and everybody is rushing to stake their claim. You don’t have to be educated to do that either.

        Literacy is a touchy subject. No wonder because all of our rulers should be deeply ashamed of the present situation.

          When I asked Alderman Dirk Smit (Salary R789 355) Cape Town’s Speaker (he’s there, I think, to make sure everybody behaves themselves) if you had to be able to read and write to be a Councillor his first response was "See Constitution." I asked his PA: "Surely the Speaker can give me the answer off the cuff." He came back through her saying it’s not a "Yes"or "No" answer.

          This was followed by a letter in which he referred to Section 158 and 47 of the country's Constitution to be read with Section 21 of the Local Government Structures Act no 117 of 1998 which sets out the qualifications required to be a Councillor.

          "You will note," he went on,"that there are no restrictions or prohibitions relating to literacy for Councillors and the legislation referred to is silent on this matter."         

          That’s the longest "No" I’ve ever heard. Heaven help us if every Councillor answers a simple question in this long winded fashion. Is that why they get paid such huge salaries?                             

          Not surprisingly the money’s running out. The Times reported that 20 ANC run municipalities have gone bankrupt; 30 ratepayer groups have refused to pay something like R10-million in rates and taxes because their basic services are collapsing.

       Realistically all that South Africa needs is a Parliament of 50 and Cape Town and all the other cities should have no more than 30 Councillors with the smaller places having proportionally less.

          Whatever party our rulers belong to you won’t hear even a whisper among any of them suggesting that we have far more MPs and Councillors than we can afford at prices that are ludicrous.

          WAKE UP! Can’t you see your taxpayer’s money is going down the drain faster than the sewage at a lot of municipalities? And the stink can be smelt internationally.

          Tearfully yours,

          Jon, Member of the Packing for Perth Party.

Note: This was first posted  on 31/5/2011 but I have updated it slightly as the 5% salary increase has been proposed.

Where's our Patriotism?

Dear Comrade Jacob,          
          Towards a 100 years of selfless struggle was the banner above your head at a recent African National Congress get-together. It makes a change from that Shapiro shower doesn’t it? And we all thought you guys didn’t have a sense of humour.
          Being anti-press your people don’t believe in editors and I can see why. Had the selfless part been deleted the rest would have been more or less true. Then again I’m not too well up on ANC culture. Has the ANC got a meaning for selfless which a whitey like me has never heard of?
          I know I’ve got a bit of a cheek making the following suggestion after having just admitted that I haven’t a clue what your culture entails. But Mr President didn’t you really mean Towards a 100 years of selfish struggle? In our European culture that would be a lot closer to the mark if you have a party with so many members who have been filling their boots at the tax payer’s expense.
          Mr President, before you give me the standard Government answer let me tell you that I’ve just looked up racist in a new English dictionary I found that contains a lot of South African words. A racist, it says, is anybody, usual white, who thinks that your Government is not entirely perfect. Allied to this is its definition of xenophobia as somebody who hates racists.
          So as a progressive leader sir, it looks as though you’ll have to revise Government policy and find another excuse for leading us into the promise Bananaland. That same dictionary tells us that Bananaland is not aptly named because there are no bananas or anything else there, much like the one your pal Mad Bob is running to the north of us.
          The anniversary of those 100 years the banner was talking about, will I believe be next year, but if you don’t get your government officials and other followers to slow down on the theft and wastage of our funds there won’t be anything left for a celebration. And if you can’t have a huge shindig costing billions you can imagine how morale in your party will suffer.
          Please bear in mind that the money at the top of the egg timer is getting very low and you should know better than any of us how quickly it runs out.  After all didn’t you have to get that Shaik chap to lend you a rand or two at one time.
          How about this for an idea? Can’t you convince your comrades to try aiming for 100 years of patriotism? That’s putting the country before your own selfish needs in case you don’t know. Why not start by hoisting the South African flag on every government building and at every school.

 I don’t mean for a couple of weeks until they get nicked. I mean as a permanent reminder of what patriotism is all about.
          And simultaneously get your followers to start acting responsibly by looking at our flag every day and repeating, Without patriotism our country will never be great and patriotism only comes if you have a country to be proud of.       
          See you at the 100 years of patriotism celebrations, if you can make it.
          Your learned adviser,  
             Jon