Still in high spirits after the success of the G20 summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa was the main speaker at a Youth Employment Services (YES) function on Thursday. The YES project has created 200,000 jobs.
In closing, McBuffalo thanked all the companies participating in the project, saying: “I really think we are onto something really good here. And if we ever wanted to make South Africa great, this is what we should do to make South Africa great again.”
Channelling your inner Donald Trump there, Mr President?
MRI a no-brainer for Trump
Speaking of the Orange One, in one of his impromptu press briefings with reporters on Air Force One, Trump told reporters he was prepared to have the results of his MRI scan made public. One journalist dug deeper: “Can we ask what they were looking at? What part of your body was the MRI looking at?”
Trump: “I have no idea. Which is the MRI, what part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it, and I had a perfect mark, which you would be incapable of doing.”
Although McBuffalo doesn’t give reporters a lift on his plane, at least he is always civil towards them.
Mkhwanazi in EFFing trouble
It was the turn of one “Julius Doctor Mkhwanazi” to appear before the Madlanga commission this week. He was nervously sweating buckets from the start and must have finished a couple of litres of bottled water as he gave his testimony.
Hogarth knew the man was in real trouble when he called a party run by that other Julius, the one with the red beret, the Economic Freedom Front. He alleged that the EFF and the DA formed a “collusion” in the Ekurhuleni Metro.
Dead man talking
When evidence leader advocate Mahlape Sello pressed Mkhwanazi for answers at one stage, he responded: “I’m dead; you are continuing to kill me whilst I am dead.”
At least Mkhwanazi did not use one of the breaks at the commission to flee when the going got tough, unlike one famous politician at the Zondo commission a few years ago.
Keeping it in the family
Which brings us to Nkandla, the headquarters of the official opposition — the MK Party. The Nkandla Crooner wasted no time in filling the vacancy created by the resignation of his favourite daughter, Duduzile, from parliament.
But Baba kaDudu was never going to waste the seat by giving it to one of the MKP hangers-on hoping for deployment. Instead, he decided to give the job to one of his other daughters, Brumelda — a recent university graduate.
While Hogarth does not wish to interfere in Zuma family affairs, he does wonder how Edward — for a long time the former president’s most vocal child — feels about being overlooked while business deals are given to his younger brother, Duduzane, and parliamentary positions go to his younger sisters.
No more Morero
Dada Morero, the unpopular Johannesburg mayor, was voted out as ANC regional chair on Friday. He was replaced by Loyiso “Woman on Top” Masuku, the MMC for finance in the city.
Why does Hogarth feel that it is the DA’s Helen Zille who is celebrating the most about this outcome?
Ag shame, Razzmattazz
The word shame has two meanings in South Africa. There is the standard English meaning. And then there is shame as an expression of sympathy or pity — as in “ag shame, man” when your little one falls off a bicycle.
Poor Fikile Mbalula, the ANC secretary-general, sounded like a Mampara in an edited video of one of his speeches where he is heard saying, “Shame must go to those who do good for society.”
It turns out, when you listen to a fuller version of the video, that he actually calls on people not to feel pain for those who get nabbed for doing wrong. “You hear people say ‘shame’ [when suspects are arrested]. ‘Shame’ for what, when the person is a tsotsi and has killed people …? ‘Shame’ must go to those who do good for society.”
Ag shame, Razzmattazz, you must learn to choose your words carefully in this world of social media.
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