The Perfect Storm

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05 March 2010 00:46

The ANC's suicidal antics

Smear campaigns, rumour fermentation, gossip mongering defines the ANC today.

JOHANNESBURG - With all its strengths, its complexity and the monstrosity that it is, the ANC leads its life like a wounded snake.

Because it is so frustrated and does not know what to do to ease the pain, the snake madly bites away on its wound until it (the snake) dies. But the sad fact is that when it bites away on this wound, it's hardly aware that it's committing suicide.

The smear campaigns, the jockeying for positions, rumour fermentation, nasty vilification, gossip mongering, surreptitious character assassination drives and outright misinformation, characterise this animal called the ANC today.

There is never a dull moment. Media leaks after media leaks, you would actually wonder if these people have time to run the country.

Front page lead after ...

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26 February 2010 00:45

Zuma, Mandela’s Aurora dream: Up in smoke?

Whoever advised Aurora short-changed these young men, argues Sipho Ngcobo.

The dust hasn't even settled, but Aurora Empowerment Systems is already having major headaches with their Pamodzi Orkney Mine.

The mine, bought less than six months ago is already in trouble.

Aurora is led by the off-springs of the country's prominent families with Khulubuse Zuma as chairman and Zondwa Mandela as managing director. Zuma is the nephew of President Jacob Zuma while Zondwa Mandela is the grandson of ex-President Nelson Mandela.

Mine workers at the No. 4 shaft of the Orkney Mine, operated by Aurora, are allegedly not being paid on time and are working underground without food, and the healthcare provided did not meet worker needs.

This does not surprise me one bit. In fact, just over five months ago, I warned Mandela and Zuma that they were b...

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12 February 2010 10:46

BEE: A man-made disaster

Sipho Ngcobo dissects the problems with BEE.

JOHANNESBURG - I would really hate to say I told you so.

The brutally frank pronouncement by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe about a week ago that black economic empowerment has failed is an amazing vindication of what I have been trying to argue.

Often times I felt like a raving lunatic hell-bent on rubbishing a noble cause.

But that's what most elements of broad-based black economic empowerment (BEBEE) are, - rubbish.

Maybe let's begin where we are supposed to begin: What was the original, genuine objective behind the BEE policy?

A simple and direct answer is:

BEE was seen as a key government policy intended to redress the wrongs of the past that left South Africa's black majority economically disenfranchised. BEE was supposed to bett...

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