Former president Jacob Zuma. (Photograph by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Photographs)
Thursday.
It’s reassuring to know that our head of state, Cyril Ramaphosa, is fully targeted on the job of operating the nation.
His predecessor, Jacob Zuma, was the alternative.
uBaba was the final word facet hustler, a person so on the make that he solely had time to reshuffle his cupboard at midnight, as soon as the day’s takings had been counted and tomorrow’s raid on the fiscus lined up.
Flights have been delayed, official openings postponed and engagements deserted, all as a result of numero uno was busy along with his personal enterprise — and that of his buddies — slightly than specializing in his day job till knocking off time got here round.
With Nxamalala, it was all in regards to the Benjamins, with governmental enterprise and the opposite boring stuff coming a really distant second to the securing of the bag.
Twenty 4 seven, three sixty 5.
Cupcake is a distinct kind of president.
It’s not simply the lack to sing, the picket dance strikes and the willingness to abide — more often than not at the very least — by the Structure of our honest Republic.
The present head of state does have a facet hustle, similar to the person who got here earlier than him.
A sport farm is, in any case, a sport farm, whether or not you’re the president or anyone else — however Ramaphosa seems to be in it for the love and never the cash.
Ramaphosa was fairly pleased to go away $580 000 — that’s R8.7 million to you and me — within the couch at his Phala Phala farm, whereas he trundled off to Addis Ababa for some African Union enterprise.
Anybody else would have banked it, with R2 200 a day to be earned, however our selfless chief seems to have little interest in compound curiosity and let it keep the place it was, holding his eye as an alternative on the enterprise of the state.
Granted, he doesn’t need to pay his personal electrical energy invoice, however that’s nonetheless some stage of dedication to the day job on the a part of the president, who didn’t even take time to do an ATM deposit when he obtained again from Ethiopia.
Responsibility earlier than financial institution stability, good governance over greed and all that.
We’re properly and really led.
Except after all, the cash wasn’t bankable, and the president was compelled by its illegality to go away it the place it was.
The president and his authorized staff have been denying this since Arthur Fraser first laid fees in opposition to him in June 2022 and have managed to persuade the Reserve Financial institution, the Income Service, the Nationwide Prosecuting Authority, the general public protector — and parliament — that the cash got here from a Christmas cattle sale.
They have been nonetheless denying it within the constitutional court docket this week in the course of the listening to of the Financial Freedom Fighters (EFF) try and have the failed course of to question the president reopened.
The listening to is likely to be an try by the EFF to get the end result they may not safe in both parliament or the excessive court docket by different means, however that also doesn’t make Ramaphosa’s story in regards to the cash any much less weird than it was in 2022.
The president should have been sitting on the Phala Phala couch, guffawing, over the goings-on on the concourt steps exterior the listening to, the place Malema declared struggle on Zuma and his social gathering — stay and direct.
It’s not simply the diversion from the embarrassing questions being requested contained in the courtroom that will have had the president in stitches.
The heady days within the wake of the 29 Might elections and within the preliminary sittings of the seventh parliament, when the EFF and the uMkhonto weSizwe social gathering have been nonetheless singing from the identical “unity” hymnbook — and the self-proclaimed progressive caucus — seem like a factor of the previous.
Zuma has taken all the things he can from the ANC for now — the identify of its army wing, its colors, KwaZulu-Natal and its parliamentary majority nationally — and has turned his consideration to the EFF forward of native authorities elections in 2026.
Juju — rightfully — has gone ballistic over the poaching expedition that netted Floyd Shivambu, Dali Mpofu, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and different members of the EFF high brass, weeks earlier than he stands for his third time period as EFF chief.
Zuma has taken Malema for just about all the things besides his seats in parliament and the legislatures and councils across the nation, which he’s eyeing — hungrily — for 2026 and past.
It’s eye-for-an-eye time and Malema has instructed his legal professionals to connect Zuma’s firepool, MaKhumalo’s rooster coop and Floyd’s new workplace within the former first household’s homestead over the authorized prices the outdated man has owed the EFF since then.
It’s “Pay Again the Cash” — yet again.