Oh joy, the giggling hyena has been arrested

Friday delivered the frankly cheerful news that former Jacob Zuma confidante and protector Dudu Myeni had been arrested.

Zuma made her a director of SAA almost as soon as he legally could after the 2009 election, and then chair in 2012, a position she used to accelerate the airline's descent into hell. Already a delinquent director, she has been charged (by the actual National Prosecuting Authority) with fraud and corruption for receiving around R300,000 in favours from Bosasa, Zuma's second-favourite state milking machine after the Gupta brothers.

Let's forget, for the moment, that it is nearly four years since Myeni appeared before the Zondo commission and therefore about the same amount of time the police have had to investigate the accusations against her.

Some were big: in 2015 she intervened to stop SAA leasing five Airbus A330 aircraft, saying instead it would need to be done through a middleman — a classic wheeze of the state capture years.

The NPA cannot afford any more setbacks and there is nothing wrong, faced with the relentless Stalingrad defence strategies of the Zuma gang, in responding with the Capone reciprocation

She also played a leading role in the machinations to fire key Eskom executives, including the CEO, also in 2015, to pave the way for Brian Molefe's return to the utility.

But in the end she faces what look like minor charges. A Bosasa affiliate did security upgrades worth R200,000 at a property of hers in Richards Bay and another spent R100,000 on flights and accommodation for her.

Still, not reporting these is a crime. The minimum sentence for fraud above R500,000 is 15 years in jail. For R300,000 she should surely do at least some time.

Myeni was one of the giggling hyenas of the state capture years. She mocked us as she turned SAA into a laughingstock and flung in our faces her relationship with the head of state. Not for nothing was she chair of the so-called Jacob Zuma Foundation.

If, having finally charged her, NPA head Shamila Batohi cannot get her into jail, she should really quit. In all likelihood, the NPA will be pretty sure of its case. It cannot afford any more setbacks and there is nothing wrong, faced with the relentless Stalingrad Defence strategies of the Zuma gang, in responding with the Capone Reciprocation: a murderous gangster, Al Capone was finally jailed after conviction on tax fraud charges in Chicago in 1931.

And as the charges are made, Batohi has to get Myeni into court soon. This cannot wait for eight years while Myeni's legal team are able, like Zuma's, to dance around the legal system as if it were a cocktail party.

Chief justice Raymond Zondo has been complaining recently that the state is not helping with the funding required to respond to crooks who have challenged his findings into state capture — that is dreadful but if he wants sustained public sympathy, he needs to ensure his courts fast-track politically important corruption cases like Myeni's.

Promises, promises

Eskom is now promising, not for the first time, to hold load-shedding at no more than stage 4 until the end of the financial year. What is it with the promises?

We keep being told the return of three units at Kusile by the end of November will bring back the full 2,000MW they are capable of, but this is just untrue. They will take time to synchronise to the grid and even when they are running it will be at well below their capacity, if only for caution. The Eskom acting CEO is a finance guy, not an engineer, but surely he would know this?

At least Eskom, away from the politicians, is trying to be straight. When President Cyril Ramaphosa's National Development Plan set targets for 2030 back in 2012, we probably didn't appreciate how bad he was with numbers and the economy in general.

Proof, if any further were required, comes in the 10-year review of the NDP which shows we are behind on almost all the targets that matter in the plan:

• GDP growth was targeted to be 5.4% by 2030. Last year it was 1.1%.
• Investment as a percentage of GDP, 19.3% in 2010 (the World Cup year), is supposed to be 30% by the end of the decade. In 2022, it was 14.1%.
• Unemployment was supposed to fall from 25.4% in 2012 to 6% by 2030. Last year it was 32.9%.
• Employment, 13.65-million people in 2012 was to rise to 24-million by 2030. Last year, it was just 16.1-million.
• The employment ratio (the proportion of the working-age population actually in work) was 41.3% in 2012. The target is 61%. The reality last year was just under 40%.

In any normal democracy, these figures would dislodge a government in an election.