Well the year 2011 is nearly at its end. I wonder what 2012 will bring to South Africans living in South Africa?
South Africa is a beautiful country, the scenery, in my opinion, surpasses anything else found in the world. It is such a pity that we have a governmunt hell bent on stripping and trashing everything in it.
A very heartfelt thanks to all my readers. Here's hoping for better news in 2012
See you in 2012
Warmest Regards
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Marchers Questionaire
14 November 2011
Today we learned about yet another march to follow against the ANC in the Eastern Cape.
We are going to publish this note and hope an ANC voter will come give us an intelligent answer as to why they are marching against the government.
We are a bunch of black liberals gathered here on a Saturday night, while the marchers are probably at some night club, clubbing the night away, while we worry about your future.
But before you blast us once more with all your old apartheid stories, The Colonialists that stole our country, and the Eskimos that stole our ice, please answer the following questions seeing we are all still in an examination mood.
You had voted for the ANC as late as this year. So please tell us when you voted this year:
Section A:
1. Were things any better than when you voted in 2007, if you were eligible?
2. Have your parents been given a free house between 2007 and 2011?
3. Did you get a job if you were unemployed after graduation?
4. Are you free yet of a taxi being squashed like a sardine or did you get access to civilized public transport?
5. Has your father or mother been given a nice juicy government tender?
6. How many foreigners have moved into your street?
7. Are your siblings still paying school fees and are their teachers at school?
8. Have any of your parents lost any tyres due to the condition of our roads?
9. Were there any new businesses or manufacturing plants been started up in your area (excluding Chinese & Somalian)
10. When you last visited a state hospital or clinic, how hygienic were the facilities?
11. Do you understand when a Cuban doctor is speaking to you and do you think he understands what you are saying?
12. Do you know that less than 10% of the population are paying tax and have to keep the other 90% of the population happy and fed and in 4x4's killing innocent learners?
13. Do you know that all consumer goods once manufactured here have been replaced by illegally imported Chinese products?
14. Do you understand the fact that because we no longer manufacture in this country it has caused job losses?
15. Do you know the Chinese pay R15,000 for citizenship in our country?
16. Do you know the Nigerians living here illegally are dealing in drugs imported from China?
17. Do you know the Chinese, Somalis and Nigerians don't pay VAT to SARS on goods sold to you?
18. Do you know what VAT is and that we need the VAT to be able to pay your Granny her pension?
19. Do you know our President and his Vice are buying Jets costing R1.6 Billion?
20. Do you know how democracy works? The Party with the most votes gets to rule the country? Do you know that?
Make sure you know the difference between Million and Billion. To help you understand the difference, 1000 Million is a Billion.
Section B:
Now sit down and think soberly and explain to us if the ANC ISN'T living up to your expectations, why do you keep voting for them, but marching against them. Get your thought process going because it is insane marching against the party you vote for.
(In this section words such as white, black, Colonialism and Apartheid may not be used, we deem them irrelevant to our current problems)
Section C:
(This section deals with a very important issue and you need to focus now)
1. Are you using the imported Chinese condoms that are tearing, also supplied via government tender?
2. Do you know how HIV/Aids is transmitted and do you know at all what it is?
3. Have your parents discussed conception with you and do you know that sex turns into a baby?
4. Do you know babies eat and need clothes?
5. Do you know that we have 2 million Aids orphans?
6. Have you had an Aids test if you do not know how to wear or insist the wearing of a condom?
Section D:
(questions are for ANCYL members only)
1. Did you march with Malema last week to the Union Buildings and why?
2. Do you know the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the heart of our economy?
3. Did you ask Malema why he wants to destroy the heart of our economy?
4. Do you know Malema drives around in a R1.2 Million 4x4 and is building a R15 Million house?
5. Do you know if the mines are nationalised that jobs will be lost due to the mines closing because of lack of expertise?
6. Do you know that nationalisation of the banks will result in a complete collapse of our currency?
7. Do you know we have a balance of payment? (If you are unfamiliar with this then do some research)
8. Do you understand that the tomatoes you eat will become imported items when the farmers are killed?
9. If you eat maize meal, do you know after the farmers are killed, you will eat rice that the Chinese will import?
10. Did you know Malema's mentor in Zimbabwe is now singing jingles on national radio stations to lure voters?
Section E:
In less than 2000 words justify the R500 Million the ANC is spending on the centennial birthday bash.
___________________________________________________________________
Regards,
The Black Liberals
PS.
Remember we don't want to hear about Apartheid, Colonialists, Eskimos or any Monks in Tibet that caused your current misery!
http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Marchers-Questionaire-20111114
The Tokoloshe
13 November 2011
400 years ago Africa might as well been another planet in our solar system.
We were living in peace in our thatch huts. The 10 piece of cattle were grazing under the African sky. The head of the family sat in the shade of a tree drinking beer, the wives were working the land and the kids were making clay oxen to play with.
Every man’s dream, even to this day, no matter where on this planet you might come from. It sounds like the African version of the Playboy mansion. You sit in the shade and your multiple wives work for you.
Then the Europeans arrived and laughed at our people who had no education and thought our way of life was savagery. We had to fight them with spears to survive and ultimately lost the battle. They took our land and made us their slaves. They sold us to America and we became a trading commodity.
That is, what it is. We can’t change the past. So now 400 years later, what now?
We had to learn through bloodshed that we were not a planet of another solar system. We are part of this world and in this world there are certain rules that can’t be broken if you want to have food. Whether we like these rules or not, they are a reality. We can fight them like Mugabe does but it would only result in hunger.
Too many Africans are yearning for life as we knew it back then…but they just love the white man’s BMW and Lear Jet. The donkey cart is way too primitive for their liking and the cow hides that once covered our loins are not as “cool” as a Hugo Boss suit. We are a race that conveniently wants to fall back on our traditions when it suits us.
Not everybody has the ability to be as black and white as I am, and I mean that in more than one sense. I accept and acknowledge that. But I had to ask myself where do I fit in? Do I want to go back to my ancestral land in Dundee and demand this land be given back to me so I can acquire a few wives and create my own Playboy Mansion or do I like it here in Sandton with a Blackberry?
You would be horrified if you read all the messages I get on Facebook of people swearing at me, calling me a traitor, a disgrace to all black people in South Africa and that whites are paying me to blog my views.
What they don’t know is that I have been very blessed to come from a long line of fighters that have fought from the days of the spear right up to the AK47.
They fought for my freedom and as sure as this sun is going to come up tomorrow, I am not going to mess up all they have fought for.
I have to address this cultural jail that stands between my people and true freedom.
Let us look at the Tokoloshe first. (Tokoloshe or Tikoloshe. From the Xhosa word uthikoloshe. The tokoloshe is a short, hairy, dwarf-like creature from Bantu folklore. It is a mischievous and evil spirit that can become invisible by swallowing a pebble. Tokoloshes are called upon by malevolent people to cause trouble for others. At its least harmful a tokoloshe can be used to scare children, but its power extends to causing illness and even death upon the victim. The way to get rid of him is to call in the n’anga or witch doctor who has the power to banish him from the area. It seems incredible to most of us that there could be any truth in the legend of the tokoloshe or the power of the witch doctor. But they are thought to exist in some parts of Africa where superstition and legend is very much alive and well. In Zulu mythology, Tikoloshe, Tokoloshe or Hili (from the Xhosa word utyreeci ukujamaal) is a dwarf-like water sprite. They are considered a mischievous and evil spirit.)
You slept with your bed raised up on a few bricks so that when the Tokoloshe comes at night, he could move freely around your room without knocking his head against any object. For those that know this superstition will know it is a small mystical hairy thing that looks like a psychotic angry little bear and catches you at night. But if he knocks his head against your bed, you are going to get this menace all over you and he has a temper like no other on earth. Stop laughing, I’m dead serious!
I haven’t seen him yet. I badly wanted to see him when I was small because while others feared him, I thought he sounded cool and wanted to befriend him.
My grandmother would look at me in absolute horror when I wanted to see the Tokoloshe. She would tell my mother “Eish this child scares me”.
When my Grandfather returned from exile, he brought me a Teddy Bear from London. I looked at the Teddy and instantly knew this was the Tokoloshe I always wanted to meet. So my bear got named Tokoloshe. I got smacked a few times because I would jump on my Grandmother when she takes her afternoon nap and scare her with Tokoloshe.
But the modern new reborn Tokoloshes sit in Parliament.
Parliament…hmmmm… let us discuss running this country, being an example to the citizens and our traditions.
In a new African landscape how practical is it having multiple wives? Nice idea, being a man. Come on you guys reading this, admit it!
But 20 children? Not so good because if I see what my university education and all the sundry trimmings are costing my father I would hate to think he had to make 20 of us. He would need to join the bank robbers to keep us at university.
My mother didn’t come cheap either, so he would have had to start stealing cattle from the white farmers if he wanted more wives. She cost him 40 head of cattle back in the 80’s. But wow, was she worth every cow! You should see her today in her Chanel dress …but 5 of them?
That is the humorous side of our tradition, but the more serious side is the following reality. There are only two of us and not twenty. So from my first breath my father has been there every step of my way thus far. We are his life and the reason he works this hard. He has spent every moment available guiding me into manhood (without sending me to a bush so some traditional butcher can slaughter my stuff beyond repair) How, as a father will you possibly find the time to devout this kind of attention to 20 kids? I don’t even want to think what life would have been like without my father. Unthinkable.
But what would I have been, if my father happily cavorted around claiming it is his culture and tradition?
I probably would have been marching with Malema on the road to nowhere and my father would have been dead by now. I would be visiting a graveyard and trying to find life’s answers from a stone. Back in the 80’s when he married my mother us blacks haven’t heard of HIV/Aids and those enlightened ones that did know about it, thought it was a homosexual disease.
So unbeknown to us we were killing ourselves. Merrily living out the principles of our tradition, not knowing we are committing suicide and resulting in 2 Million orphans just in South Africa alone, let alone the rest of Africa.
Wouldn’t this be a far more worthy cause to march about than march to get stuff you deliriously think should be given to you for free?
Imagine what must be going through the mind of a 4 year old kid, who is left all alone tonight, with nobody to take care of him or her? None of these orphaned kids asked to be here, so imagine how a child has to try and make sense of all of this?
So why do I still have my parents? Because my father knew he can’t run around making babies that he can’t provide for. He had to think soberly about life with a new millennium looming. He had us because he wanted us. We were to become his legacy. We weren’t conceived in a moment of uncontrolled lust or in the name of an outdated tradition.
We won’t discuss the merits of the social grant for mothers with kids and absent fathers but alarmingly condoms are still very unpopular accessories amongst the population of Africa. Until recently we had that scary old Bat as a minister of health. Tokolosh personified. Beetroot juice and cabbage leaves will cure the disease, while the Chief would shower after a bit of inyama.
What did my father do 7 years ago when I reached puberty? He sat me down and told me the facts and how it all happens. Every time I leave the house he jokingly says he will draw blood when I return and have me tested. He jokes, but it has sunk in so deep now, I think about the consequences every time I see a gorgeous girl.
What do my people do? Until recently it was better swept under the table than discuss the matter. It became unlawful to state a person has died of AIDS on his death certificate. How big is this denial?
Please don’t make a comment after you have read this and tell me this disease was invented by the Apartheid rulers to wipe us out. I’m not even going to discuss that old stale story! And speaking about Apartheid, get over it. It has no relevance in 2011. Dead, gone, born 31-05-1961 and was executed on 27-04-1994. Our ultimate justification for everything that we do wrong can’t come back so we can stone it.
The most bizarre superstition was invented to “cure” the disease. Rape a girl and it goes away. By girl, I mean little ones that had to helpless have their lives taken from them without their consent. Grown men believing in rubbish like this. How in the name of God can you possibly justify this, no matter what your traditions or beliefs are?
We have now for far too long shrugged our shoulders and hid behind our traditions on the one hand and on the other we want to sit at the UN and pretend we have the wisdom to help decide the fate of other countries. In this world we need to merge with, you have:
1. One wife. You sleep around, you die.
2. You have more kids than you can provide for, they starve and when they grow up they will steal to survive because you didn’t have enough money to send them to a decent school. The government schools are a complete waste of time because the teachers are never in class.
3. You can’t sell or trade with your daughters. They are not consumer goods.
4. You study or qualify as an artisan so you can earn your own keep and build your own house. There isn’t enough money going around building 40 Million free houses. You can wait until the sun burns itself out, it is not going to happen. So live with it.
5. Forget the white man’s wealth. It has long gone been transferred to Sydney. There isn’t any left here. Create your own. Forget about redistribution. Use your logic. The wealth of 5 Million whites was never going to send 45 Million blacks into a blissful retirement. The white wealth Malema cries about daily, was only in the hands of a few whites.
So until we move ourselves forward and merge ourselves with the world, we will remain primitive. 17 Years after independence you don’t dance from Beyers Naude to the stock exchange and have foreign journalists film your insanity in the name of freedom.
We were freed 17 years ago, embrace it and use your freedom to trade with the world, not crash your own stock market.
We can march up to the Union Buildings until the cows come home. We are not going to move ourselves forward until we free ourselves from ourselves!
http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Tokoloshe-20111113
We were living in peace in our thatch huts. The 10 piece of cattle were grazing under the African sky. The head of the family sat in the shade of a tree drinking beer, the wives were working the land and the kids were making clay oxen to play with.
Every man’s dream, even to this day, no matter where on this planet you might come from. It sounds like the African version of the Playboy mansion. You sit in the shade and your multiple wives work for you.
Then the Europeans arrived and laughed at our people who had no education and thought our way of life was savagery. We had to fight them with spears to survive and ultimately lost the battle. They took our land and made us their slaves. They sold us to America and we became a trading commodity.
That is, what it is. We can’t change the past. So now 400 years later, what now?
We had to learn through bloodshed that we were not a planet of another solar system. We are part of this world and in this world there are certain rules that can’t be broken if you want to have food. Whether we like these rules or not, they are a reality. We can fight them like Mugabe does but it would only result in hunger.
Too many Africans are yearning for life as we knew it back then…but they just love the white man’s BMW and Lear Jet. The donkey cart is way too primitive for their liking and the cow hides that once covered our loins are not as “cool” as a Hugo Boss suit. We are a race that conveniently wants to fall back on our traditions when it suits us.
Not everybody has the ability to be as black and white as I am, and I mean that in more than one sense. I accept and acknowledge that. But I had to ask myself where do I fit in? Do I want to go back to my ancestral land in Dundee and demand this land be given back to me so I can acquire a few wives and create my own Playboy Mansion or do I like it here in Sandton with a Blackberry?
You would be horrified if you read all the messages I get on Facebook of people swearing at me, calling me a traitor, a disgrace to all black people in South Africa and that whites are paying me to blog my views.
What they don’t know is that I have been very blessed to come from a long line of fighters that have fought from the days of the spear right up to the AK47.
They fought for my freedom and as sure as this sun is going to come up tomorrow, I am not going to mess up all they have fought for.
I have to address this cultural jail that stands between my people and true freedom.
Let us look at the Tokoloshe first. (Tokoloshe or Tikoloshe. From the Xhosa word uthikoloshe. The tokoloshe is a short, hairy, dwarf-like creature from Bantu folklore. It is a mischievous and evil spirit that can become invisible by swallowing a pebble. Tokoloshes are called upon by malevolent people to cause trouble for others. At its least harmful a tokoloshe can be used to scare children, but its power extends to causing illness and even death upon the victim. The way to get rid of him is to call in the n’anga or witch doctor who has the power to banish him from the area. It seems incredible to most of us that there could be any truth in the legend of the tokoloshe or the power of the witch doctor. But they are thought to exist in some parts of Africa where superstition and legend is very much alive and well. In Zulu mythology, Tikoloshe, Tokoloshe or Hili (from the Xhosa word utyreeci ukujamaal) is a dwarf-like water sprite. They are considered a mischievous and evil spirit.)
You slept with your bed raised up on a few bricks so that when the Tokoloshe comes at night, he could move freely around your room without knocking his head against any object. For those that know this superstition will know it is a small mystical hairy thing that looks like a psychotic angry little bear and catches you at night. But if he knocks his head against your bed, you are going to get this menace all over you and he has a temper like no other on earth. Stop laughing, I’m dead serious!
I haven’t seen him yet. I badly wanted to see him when I was small because while others feared him, I thought he sounded cool and wanted to befriend him.
My grandmother would look at me in absolute horror when I wanted to see the Tokoloshe. She would tell my mother “Eish this child scares me”.
When my Grandfather returned from exile, he brought me a Teddy Bear from London. I looked at the Teddy and instantly knew this was the Tokoloshe I always wanted to meet. So my bear got named Tokoloshe. I got smacked a few times because I would jump on my Grandmother when she takes her afternoon nap and scare her with Tokoloshe.
But the modern new reborn Tokoloshes sit in Parliament.
Parliament…hmmmm… let us discuss running this country, being an example to the citizens and our traditions.
In a new African landscape how practical is it having multiple wives? Nice idea, being a man. Come on you guys reading this, admit it!
But 20 children? Not so good because if I see what my university education and all the sundry trimmings are costing my father I would hate to think he had to make 20 of us. He would need to join the bank robbers to keep us at university.
My mother didn’t come cheap either, so he would have had to start stealing cattle from the white farmers if he wanted more wives. She cost him 40 head of cattle back in the 80’s. But wow, was she worth every cow! You should see her today in her Chanel dress …but 5 of them?
That is the humorous side of our tradition, but the more serious side is the following reality. There are only two of us and not twenty. So from my first breath my father has been there every step of my way thus far. We are his life and the reason he works this hard. He has spent every moment available guiding me into manhood (without sending me to a bush so some traditional butcher can slaughter my stuff beyond repair) How, as a father will you possibly find the time to devout this kind of attention to 20 kids? I don’t even want to think what life would have been like without my father. Unthinkable.
But what would I have been, if my father happily cavorted around claiming it is his culture and tradition?
I probably would have been marching with Malema on the road to nowhere and my father would have been dead by now. I would be visiting a graveyard and trying to find life’s answers from a stone. Back in the 80’s when he married my mother us blacks haven’t heard of HIV/Aids and those enlightened ones that did know about it, thought it was a homosexual disease.
So unbeknown to us we were killing ourselves. Merrily living out the principles of our tradition, not knowing we are committing suicide and resulting in 2 Million orphans just in South Africa alone, let alone the rest of Africa.
Wouldn’t this be a far more worthy cause to march about than march to get stuff you deliriously think should be given to you for free?
Imagine what must be going through the mind of a 4 year old kid, who is left all alone tonight, with nobody to take care of him or her? None of these orphaned kids asked to be here, so imagine how a child has to try and make sense of all of this?
So why do I still have my parents? Because my father knew he can’t run around making babies that he can’t provide for. He had to think soberly about life with a new millennium looming. He had us because he wanted us. We were to become his legacy. We weren’t conceived in a moment of uncontrolled lust or in the name of an outdated tradition.
We won’t discuss the merits of the social grant for mothers with kids and absent fathers but alarmingly condoms are still very unpopular accessories amongst the population of Africa. Until recently we had that scary old Bat as a minister of health. Tokolosh personified. Beetroot juice and cabbage leaves will cure the disease, while the Chief would shower after a bit of inyama.
What did my father do 7 years ago when I reached puberty? He sat me down and told me the facts and how it all happens. Every time I leave the house he jokingly says he will draw blood when I return and have me tested. He jokes, but it has sunk in so deep now, I think about the consequences every time I see a gorgeous girl.
What do my people do? Until recently it was better swept under the table than discuss the matter. It became unlawful to state a person has died of AIDS on his death certificate. How big is this denial?
Please don’t make a comment after you have read this and tell me this disease was invented by the Apartheid rulers to wipe us out. I’m not even going to discuss that old stale story! And speaking about Apartheid, get over it. It has no relevance in 2011. Dead, gone, born 31-05-1961 and was executed on 27-04-1994. Our ultimate justification for everything that we do wrong can’t come back so we can stone it.
The most bizarre superstition was invented to “cure” the disease. Rape a girl and it goes away. By girl, I mean little ones that had to helpless have their lives taken from them without their consent. Grown men believing in rubbish like this. How in the name of God can you possibly justify this, no matter what your traditions or beliefs are?
We have now for far too long shrugged our shoulders and hid behind our traditions on the one hand and on the other we want to sit at the UN and pretend we have the wisdom to help decide the fate of other countries. In this world we need to merge with, you have:
1. One wife. You sleep around, you die.
2. You have more kids than you can provide for, they starve and when they grow up they will steal to survive because you didn’t have enough money to send them to a decent school. The government schools are a complete waste of time because the teachers are never in class.
3. You can’t sell or trade with your daughters. They are not consumer goods.
4. You study or qualify as an artisan so you can earn your own keep and build your own house. There isn’t enough money going around building 40 Million free houses. You can wait until the sun burns itself out, it is not going to happen. So live with it.
5. Forget the white man’s wealth. It has long gone been transferred to Sydney. There isn’t any left here. Create your own. Forget about redistribution. Use your logic. The wealth of 5 Million whites was never going to send 45 Million blacks into a blissful retirement. The white wealth Malema cries about daily, was only in the hands of a few whites.
So until we move ourselves forward and merge ourselves with the world, we will remain primitive. 17 Years after independence you don’t dance from Beyers Naude to the stock exchange and have foreign journalists film your insanity in the name of freedom.
We were freed 17 years ago, embrace it and use your freedom to trade with the world, not crash your own stock market.
We can march up to the Union Buildings until the cows come home. We are not going to move ourselves forward until we free ourselves from ourselves!
http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Tokoloshe-20111113
Business Class Flights and 5 Star Hotels
LIFE is really good during the global recession — at least if you’re a top official in Armscor.
Life is so good that your employer pays for your five-star hotel rooms at R3 500 a day, booked (and paid for) a full day in advance just so that you don’t have to queue when you arrive at the hotel the next morning.
This was the service enjoyed by 10 of Armscor’s top officials, including non-executive board members, in September when they flew to England (business class) to represent Armscor at an arms exhibition.
The exhibition was held between September 13 and 16, but the officials’ rooms in five-star hotels were booked and paid for from September 11 to 17, two days longer than the duration of the show.
Documents in Beeld’s possession show that the officials also had use of Carey, an exclusive European limousine and chauffeuring service, at their disposal.
The bill for Carey’s services totalled R43 000, including a penalty levy of R6 000 because the rented limousine waited three times for officials who were late. On two occasions the limousine waited 45 minutes before the Armscor people arrived.
Armscor, the state’s armaments company, is dependent on arms sales to make a living. However, the company is having it tough. In its last financial it received a government bail-out of R594,8 million to balance the books.
In the past three years Armscor’s financial assistance from the government totalled R1,6 billion.
Acting Armscor CEO Sipho Mkwanazi said in the group’s financial statements that the group was under substantial financial pressure with regard to its ability to obtain sustainable financing.
Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier said it was “simply wrong” that Armscor officials, including board members, flew all over the world like “Fortune 500 fat cats” on taxpayers’ money.
He said it was difficult to obtain information about Armscor’s trips abroad. “I suspect the latest events are just the tip of the iceberg. The company appears to be trying to cover up information.”
Maynier said neither Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu nor Mkwanazi had responded to inquiries about the matter raised during committee meetings earlier this year.
“Armscor appears to think it is a power of its own that is not accountable to Parliament.”
Armscor spokesperson Daphney Chuma, who was approached for comment last week, said yesterday: “Armscor has to do marketing in order to support the South African defence industry. The [marketing] leads to job creation and helps to develop the defence sector. All trips by Armscor support this mandate.”
Chuma said that, like the directors of any company in the private sector, the Armscor board also provided leadership in the course of giving effect to Armscor’s marketing mandate.
“That includes the development of partnerships with other countries and companies involved in the defence industry.”
http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=73505
Life is so good that your employer pays for your five-star hotel rooms at R3 500 a day, booked (and paid for) a full day in advance just so that you don’t have to queue when you arrive at the hotel the next morning.
This was the service enjoyed by 10 of Armscor’s top officials, including non-executive board members, in September when they flew to England (business class) to represent Armscor at an arms exhibition.
The exhibition was held between September 13 and 16, but the officials’ rooms in five-star hotels were booked and paid for from September 11 to 17, two days longer than the duration of the show.
Documents in Beeld’s possession show that the officials also had use of Carey, an exclusive European limousine and chauffeuring service, at their disposal.
The bill for Carey’s services totalled R43 000, including a penalty levy of R6 000 because the rented limousine waited three times for officials who were late. On two occasions the limousine waited 45 minutes before the Armscor people arrived.
Armscor, the state’s armaments company, is dependent on arms sales to make a living. However, the company is having it tough. In its last financial it received a government bail-out of R594,8 million to balance the books.
In the past three years Armscor’s financial assistance from the government totalled R1,6 billion.
Acting Armscor CEO Sipho Mkwanazi said in the group’s financial statements that the group was under substantial financial pressure with regard to its ability to obtain sustainable financing.
Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier said it was “simply wrong” that Armscor officials, including board members, flew all over the world like “Fortune 500 fat cats” on taxpayers’ money.
He said it was difficult to obtain information about Armscor’s trips abroad. “I suspect the latest events are just the tip of the iceberg. The company appears to be trying to cover up information.”
Maynier said neither Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu nor Mkwanazi had responded to inquiries about the matter raised during committee meetings earlier this year.
“Armscor appears to think it is a power of its own that is not accountable to Parliament.”
Armscor spokesperson Daphney Chuma, who was approached for comment last week, said yesterday: “Armscor has to do marketing in order to support the South African defence industry. The [marketing] leads to job creation and helps to develop the defence sector. All trips by Armscor support this mandate.”
Chuma said that, like the directors of any company in the private sector, the Armscor board also provided leadership in the course of giving effect to Armscor’s marketing mandate.
“That includes the development of partnerships with other countries and companies involved in the defence industry.”
http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=73505
A STAGGERING 1 941 Official Firearms Lost
A STAGGERING 1 941 official firearms to the collective value of R5,060 million have been reported lost or stolen by KwaZulu-Natal law enforcement officers between January and October this year.
This was revealed by KZN Community Safety and Liaison MEC Willies Mchunu in a parliamentary reply to questions by the Democratic Alliance (DA) yesterday.
The report revealed that 1 120 firearms were reported lost, while 821 were listed as stolen.
Of these firearms, 1 542 handguns, 57 shotguns and 360 rifles were reported lost or stolen.
Mchunu said 203 firearms reported lost or stolen during the past five years have since been recovered, with the average time frame 409 days for recovery.
The DA said it was alarmed by these figures and will be calling for a full explanation from the MEC.
“The fact that so many firearms entrusted to law enforcement officers have simply vanished is an indictment against both the department and its employees and raises serious questions around competency levels,” DA spokesperson for community safety and liaison Sizwe Mchunu said yesterday.
“We will be calling for answers as to how this has been allowed to happen and what steps the department is taking to prevent such massive loss in the future.
“We also want to know whether any disciplinary measures are in place to deal with instances where firearms simply disappear.”
He said the recovery rate of weapons indicates that finding missing firearms is not viewed as a department priority. “KZN’s crime levels remain high and the reality is that many of these weapons are now in the wrong hands,” said Mchunu.
The MEC responded that a dedicated team investigates the disappearance of firearms and that all necessary steps are taken.
http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=73423
This was revealed by KZN Community Safety and Liaison MEC Willies Mchunu in a parliamentary reply to questions by the Democratic Alliance (DA) yesterday.
The report revealed that 1 120 firearms were reported lost, while 821 were listed as stolen.
Of these firearms, 1 542 handguns, 57 shotguns and 360 rifles were reported lost or stolen.
Mchunu said 203 firearms reported lost or stolen during the past five years have since been recovered, with the average time frame 409 days for recovery.
The DA said it was alarmed by these figures and will be calling for a full explanation from the MEC.
“The fact that so many firearms entrusted to law enforcement officers have simply vanished is an indictment against both the department and its employees and raises serious questions around competency levels,” DA spokesperson for community safety and liaison Sizwe Mchunu said yesterday.
“We will be calling for answers as to how this has been allowed to happen and what steps the department is taking to prevent such massive loss in the future.
“We also want to know whether any disciplinary measures are in place to deal with instances where firearms simply disappear.”
He said the recovery rate of weapons indicates that finding missing firearms is not viewed as a department priority. “KZN’s crime levels remain high and the reality is that many of these weapons are now in the wrong hands,” said Mchunu.
The MEC responded that a dedicated team investigates the disappearance of firearms and that all necessary steps are taken.
http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=73423
Monday, December 12, 2011
And This Comes From A Black Man
He has been called a traitor and says he has received death threats from black people because of his extraordinary beliefs.
But Piet Dlamini, a gardener from KwaZulu-Natal, says his loyalties will always lie with the white supremacist group, the AWB.
In an interview with the Daily News on Tuesday, in Vryheid, Dlamini, 34, poured his heart out about his unique association with the AWB.
"Black people are usually shocked and angry when they see me. They ask me what's wrong with me, and others even threaten to kill me, but I don't care about them. They can't change me and my beliefs," he said proudly.
Dlamini, from Mvunyane village, near Vryheid, grew up on a farm in Piet Retief and attended local Zulu schools. At an early age, he displayed a unique love for Afrikaans.
"I must have been in Grade 4 or 5 when I started taking an interest in the language. When I was in high school I was already fluent in Afrikaans. I love this language, I will speak it until I die," he said.
Dlamini said he first took an interest in Terre'Blanche and the AWB 10 years ago. He now refers to Terre'Blanche as his leader and father.
Dlamini had read about Terre'Blanche in newspapers but when he saw him riding his black horse on television, he just knew he had to meet him.
"The more I read about him, the more I was drawn towards him. He was a farmer, he knew who he was, and I like people that know who they are and what they stand for," he said.
Dlamini said the AWB's policies do not deter him, even though the organisation has yet to admit him as a member.
"I didn't care about Eugene's behaviour; all I cared about was that he could help the country become better. And besides, when I met him he had changed," he said, referring to his first meeting with Terre'Blanche, in 2008.
Terre'Blanche had visited Vryheid to revive the AWB, and Dlamini knew this was his chance to meet his idol.
Dlamini waited patiently to get a glimpse of his leader outside the hall but Terre'Blanche invited him inside, allowing him to sit in on the meeting.
"He never isolated me during the meeting, he was kind. He greeted me and shook my hand. He spoke to me softly. It felt good to finally meet him. I thanked God because I never thought I would meet him," recalled Dlamini.
Before the interview Dlamini, dressed in an AWB camouflage uniform, made it clear he would be speaking his "leader's language".
"It's not that I don't like Zulu, I just prefer to speak Afrikaans. It's my language of choice," he explained.
Speaking about Terre'-Blanche's murder and funeral, Dlamini said he would have loved to attend the funeral, but couldn't afford the trip.
But he hopes the murder suspects will be dealt with harshly.
"Those two should get life imprisonment. In fact, if it was still PW Botha's government, they would have got the death penalty, but this government doesn't care about anyone except themselves.
"It has become acceptable for people to kill each other. If the country was being governed by the AWB none of this would be happening. We would have a crime-free, well-run country."
His eyes, however light up when I ask him about his 21-month-old son Wiseman and his girlfriend Lungile Khoza.
Dlamini said he was disappointed when Khoza refused to let him name their son after Terre'Blanche.
"It doesn't matter though because I will teach my son both English and Afrikaans and I will tell him all about Terre'Blanche. I will tell him about what a great man and leader he was," he said.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Zuma Incorporated
Here are the business interests of "Zuma Incorporated" -- of President Jacob Zuma and his women, children and other close relatives -- as far as we could identify them from public sources.
There are likely to be some inaccuracies, many gaps, as well as stories to tell about what exactly these companies do. Have they landed contracts simply on the strength of the Zuma name? Do they do business with the state? There may also be close relatives we have not identified. If you can help complete the picture, please click here to email your responses to the Mail & Guardian.
There are likely to be some inaccuracies, many gaps, as well as stories to tell about what exactly these companies do. Have they landed contracts simply on the strength of the Zuma name? Do they do business with the state? There may also be close relatives we have not identified. If you can help complete the picture, please click here to email your responses to the Mail & Guardian.
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