A bad week for Cyril Ramaphosa
His criticism of sanctions imposed on Iran and Zimbabwe is alarming
A good week for Tembeka Ngcukaitobi
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi is throwing his legal mind and weight behind that part of the nation (probably the majority) which is, in the South African colloquialism, gatvol of Eskom. The senior counsel is part of a growing and diverse group of people — from Mmusi Maimane to Bantu Holomisa and Dirk Hermann — who say those responsible for power cuts need a kick up that gat. Ngcukaitobi has volunteered to take on Eskom and the department of public enterprises in a class action, forcing them to come clean on the true reasons for our power crisis and actually do something.
A bad week for Cyril Ramaphosa
So it turns out that Cyril Ramaphosa isn’t much of a democrat. It’s a sign of his disengagement from society, and his cosying up to looterati, that he called for the lifting of sanctions against such thuggish regimes as Iran (the place where women who don’t wear headscarves correctly are beaten to death) and Zimbabwe. You can understand him wanting to deflect attention from the slow-pressure collapse of South Africa, with power cuts of up to 12 hours a day. But his pretending that Zimbabwe’s economic woes weren’t caused by Zanu-PF, Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa, but by US sanctions, should disturb every business leader in this country.