Mr President, this is an insult of the highest order to South Africans

Dear DM168 reader,

The announcement on 16 April that a man pivotal to the SARS State Capture project will be awarded one of  the highest orders of the land by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 28 April made me wonder whether or not our President is serious about dealing decisively with the rot revealed by the Zondo Commission.

Duma Ndlovu is a successful playwright and television producer who has kept millions of South Africans glued to their screens watching the exploits of loved and hated characters on Muvhango, Imbewu: The Seed and Uzalo which unseated Generations as the most watched TV show in South Africa.

If Ndlovu stuck to his brilliant television and theatre career he would definitely be deserving of the Order of Ikhamanga (silver) for achievements by South Africans in the creative fields of arts, culture, literature, music and journalism.

Alas, as the ANC’s very own Veteran’s League pointed out in a statement released today that  Ndlovu should not be deserving of any award as he was the man who introduced President Jacob Zuma to the Italian Rapscallion at Bain and Company South Africa, Vittorio Massone.

My colleague Ferial Haffajee had this to say about Massone: “His schmoozing was so successful that he met former president Jacob Zuma 17 times between 2012 and 2014, and boasted to his colleagues that he knew about Tom Moyane’s appointment as SARS commissioner long before it was announced.”

Zuma hand-picked Moyane for the job and gave Massone unprecedented presidential access.  This happened after the Bain boss paid R100,000 for almost four years every month to  Ndlovu and Mpumelelo Ngema through their company Ambrobrite to be introduced to various figures in the public sector.

The showmen coined R4.8-million over the period for their dabble in political theatre. Our country on the other hand is still reeling from Bain’s role in wrecking the South African Revenue Service.

I’m glad that the ANC veterans are calling on the President to do the right thing. Sadly, there is a whole lot more than SARS and State Capture that the ANC wrecking ball has been responsible for over the last three decades.

The governing party, which has overseen the collapse of Eskom and the dire state of our economy that now has the highest level of unemployment in the world, is definitely not deserving of any kind of national award.

And that brings me to today’s scary lead story in DM168.

More and more South Africans are teetering on the brink of financial trouble because salaries have stagnated while inflation, interest rates, food, medical and fuel prices have soared. And then there’s the disaster of electricity price hikes which we have to pay for despite  expected Stage 8 load shedding in winter. Daily Maverick personal finance editor Neesa Moodley saw the writing on the wall and has written this week’s DM168 lead story explaining just how bad the crisis is.

Hold on tight, we are in for a rough ride.

If you have any advice on how to survive these dire times, write to me at [email protected]

Yours in defence of truth,

Heather

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper which is available countrywide for R29.