A bad week for Fikile Mbalula
The ANC’s master of self-sabotage can’t find the right script
A good week for Nkosana Makate
Nkosana Makate is nothing if not dogged. For 15 years he has fought Vodacom for compensation for his Please Call Me idea. Vodacom offered him R47m, but the Supreme Court of Appeal has now given the telecoms giant 30 days to come up with a better offer. Makate’s legal team says R28bn would be more appropriate. It’s likely that the final sum will be somewhere in between. Vodacom is not expected to give up the fight, with the next round probably in the Constitutional Court. Whatever the outcome there, you can be sure the lawyers will win.
A bad week for Fikile Mbalula
Fikile Mbalula is a man of many roles, straight out of ANC central casting. He has played both youth league leader and cabinet minister; the best you could say is that those performances bombed at the box office. His latest role as secretary-general of the ANC is also getting bad reviews. Confronted at the weekend with an embarrassing outbreak of power cuts, he blamed Eskom’s problems on “sabotage”. He seemed to be reprising Claude Rains as Captain Renault in Casablanca, but he forgot the deadpan last line: “Round up the usual suspects.”