It’s Brexit Boris. Not likely in SA

Read More

Thursday.

I’m up early, hoping to make use of the time difference between Durban and London to get some work away before opening time at 10 Downing Street.

What have turned out, finally, to be Boris Johnson’s last days as prime minister have been fascinating; beautiful, actually. MPs and cabinet members resigning left, right and centre — a magnificent implosion of a career, and a party, based on lies, greed and privilege.

At the time of writing, 53 British MPs and ministers had resigned from Johnson’s government in a bid to force him to quit — the scoreboard changing by the minute — and the moment of truth had come upon Boris.

Too many lies.

Too many dodge appointments.

Too many failures to do the right thing.

Johnson, greased piglet to the end, resisted despite a resignation statement being prepared for him by the Tories, who wanted him gone, but the inevitable farewell from the Number 10 doorstep was inevitable.

Boris agreed to resign as party leader but stay on as head of government while the Tories fight it out over who replaces him. But he’s likely to be forced to step down from both positions earlier than he wanted to.

Brexit, baby.

Live and direct.

Just not the Brexit that Boris envisaged.

Perhaps Cyril Ramaphosa’s enemies in the ANC will start resigning from his cabinet, and as MPs, to try to force him to stand down over the Phala Phala money theft scandal, when they see Boris’s demise on the telly.

It’s not likely, given their track record — and Ramaphosa’s — during Pay Back the Money’s time as head of state and party.

The comrades were more concerned about making sure they were sorted on the 15th of every month than registering their protest, so my money is on no copycat resignations here in the Republic.

Ramaphosa, in his wisdom, wants to solve the problem of 12- and 13-year-olds drinking alcohol by shifting the age limit from 18 to 21.

The president’s logic is lost one me. I can’t see how increasing the age limit will help stop 12- and 13-year-olds from drinking alcohol, given that the 12- and 13-year-olds who are drinking underage will still be 12 and 13 years of age, and drinking, whether the age limit is 18 or 21.

Surely the focus should be on enforcing the existing age limit, and giving young people something to do and somewhere to do it, rather than upping the legal age, which is not being enforced.

All the presidential proposal will achieve is to criminalise the drinking of those aged between 18 and 21 who are currently consuming alcohol legally, increasing the number of youngsters breaking the law and further stretching the already limited capacity of those whose job it is to enforce the age limit.

That’s logical. It’s like increasing the speed limit to decrease the number of road fatalities. Then again, our president kept millions under the mattress, so why should we be surprised by this apparent lapse in logic on his part?

He is not the only person in our government lacking in the ability to compute.

How else does one explain the appointment of a looter nailed for multiple supply-chain management violations to oversee the KwaZulu-Natal provincial treasury’s supply chain management function?

The province’s finance MEC, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has signed off on appointing Ithala Development Finance Corporation board chairperson Roshan Morar’s auditing firm — Morar Incorporated — on a three-year contract to provide support to the province’s departments, entities and municipalities and improve their supply chain management capacity.

Morar Inc was sanctioned by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) over an irregular contract it was given to recover “missing” personal protective equipment (PPE) during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the revenue from which was returned to the department.

Morar’s other company — Amakhono Capital, which specialises in financial services and property deals — agreed to pay back the profits it made on a R4-million deal to supply the education department with backpack spray guns for cleansing classrooms and the like to avoid appearing before the SIU’s tribunal.

The education department hasn’t blacklisted Morar. Its top brass, whose job it is to initiate blacklisting, faces sanction over the bent PPE awards and aren’t likely to initiate action against him any time soon. The treasury says it’s precluded from precluding Morar Inc as long as the company is technically capable of executing the tender.

Logical, I’m sure. Ethical, perhaps not.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.