EFF leader Julius Malema was obviously greatly touched by the Nkandla Crooner’s gesture of travelling all the way from his apparent second home, Eswatini, to be with the Malema family as they buried one of their elders.
So touched was he that he contrasted the actions of the man he has crossed swords with on numerous occasions to those who were, until recently, regarded as his closest associates.
“There are people; I buried their parents, they never even sent me a message. One of them, I went to their family home, and they were feeding people tinned fish at the funeral. I had to take a decision there and then to go and buy a cow. Today they insult me during my bereavement,” Malema told 702’s Clement Manyathela.
Hogarth isn’t sure if the township-raised CIC actually knows the time it takes to deliver a cow to a bereaved family, have the associated rituals performed before it is slaughtered, or how long it takes to cook it. Does he want the nation to believe that the mourners waited patiently at the house while all of this was being done?
No ways, bantwana benkosi, as one of his old associates, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, would have said if he were still on radio.
Cutting remarks
While refusing to tell Manyathela who he was talking about, Malema doubled down on the gossip.
“You know, some of them, I took them to circumcision, by the way. I took them literally to hospital to be circumcised, and today they think they can speak to me the way they want.”
It beats Hogarth why an adult man like Juju would consider the foreskin of another his concern, but he should be careful that his propensity to speak publicly about his friends doesn’t earn him the moniker GIC — Gossiper-in-Chief.
Hanging out in parliament
Since arriving in parliament, the MK Party hasn’t been the kind of watchdog South Africa has come to expect of the official opposition. It has, at times, been upstaged by smaller parties holding the government to account.
However, this week MKP MPs showed that they can be highly vigilant. During a question-and-answer session with finance minister Enoch Godongwana, Visvin Reddy rose on a point of order.
“My very favourite minister is on the floor and we are sitting here and being abused by something hanging out of his pants … We are not sure what it is. If he can put it back, please, and zip it up.”
Speaker Thoko Didiza responded: “I think the minister has heard what you are saying, and he will attend to it.”
But the minister appeared confused by all the excitement. “What is it?” he asked as he fiddled with his belt and trousers before exclaiming “Oh!” as the penny finally dropped.
What a washout
In the run-up to the aborted ANC Eastern Cape conference in KuGompo City — formerly East London — party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and other leaders had shown amazing confidence in their chances of winning against a group that wanted the courts to halt the conference.
“Only a tsunami will stop it,” Mbalula said a day before the matter went before the courts.
Hogarth can only imagine the crushing wave of embarrassment that swept Mbalula away the next day when the court granted an interim interdict against the conference going ahead.
As one of the litigants against the conference, Lwazi Rotya, told a journalist: “The tsunami has descended.”
Mayoral mayhem
Still in the Eastern Cape, parliament’s portfolio committee on local government met Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe and her team last week to discuss that city’s dire state of affairs. Committee chair Zweli Mkhize painted a sad picture of how things were falling apart in the mayor’s own office.
“In the first instance, we scheduled a meeting last week and withdrew it; we postponed it. But the mayor landed here and was completely unaware that the meeting had been postponed, because of her office. We met, I greeted her and I did say, ‘No, not this week mayor ...’
“The meeting was postponed quite a while back. That for us is a mark of disorganisation in a serious office,” said Mkhize.
No wonder electricity pylons are collapsing and water has become scarce in that city under the mayor’s watch.
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