Two reports on very distinct issue caught my eye this morning. Could this be the wake-up call we need – after an embarrassing week in which we all had to come to grips with the irresponsible and seemingly insatiable appetites of our President? First, the Daily Dispatch – that feisty newspaper in the Eastern Cape who [...]
Posts under ‘Kgalema Motlanthe’
Pikoli, the NPA and the R7.5 million
It is a pity that Vusi Pikoli decided not to embarrass the government by going ahead with his case in which he was challenging the lawfulness of his suspension and eventual firing as head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Instead, after a marathon mediation process, Pikoli accepted a R7.5 million settlement in which the [...]
Pikoli = 1: President of the RSA = 0
It comes as no surprise that Vusi Pikoli won the first round in his legal battle with the President of South Africa when the North Gauteng High Court granted an interim interdict prohibiting the President from appointing a permanent National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) until such time as Pikoli’s case had been dealt with. [...]
Positions, positions, positions?
When estate agents want to sell you a dodgy house they smile and say: “Remember, location, location, location!” For politicians one might adopt this phrase to: “Positions, positions, positions!” Could that be why Deputy President Baleka Mbete seemed to have thrown her toys out of the cot yesterday by refusing to be sworn in as [...]
National security? Then why is the President not stepping in?
There seems to be stand-off between the high brass of the police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Newspapers report that the police tapped the phones of the head of the Scorpions to try and ¨get¨ those who were investigating Police Commisioner, Jackie Selebi, then charged the çlead investigator in the Selebi matter, and now [...]
Parliament neither fit nor proper
The ANC majority of a joint ad hoc committee of Parliament has now taken a political decision to rubber-stamp the decision of President Kgalema Motlanthe to fire Vusi Pikoli, the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), on the basis that Pikoli was not suitably sensitive to national security concerns and was thus not a “fit [...]
“Bothers on stupidity”? Racism? Fit and proper?
Carmel Ricard wrote a scathing column in the Weekender in which she quoted at length from a judgment handed down by then acting judge Muzi Wilfred Mkhize SC, who has been tipped to become the next National Director of Public Prosecutions. The judgment contains some shocking (and it must be said, some hilariously), incomprehensible tidbits [...]
“Fit and proper” or a “diciplined cadre”?
I see the newspapers report that Muzi Wilfred Mkhize, the advocate tipped to be South Africa’s new prosecutions boss – and who could ultimately decide the fate of presidential aspirant Jacob Zuma – was an active member of the ANC leader’s legal team when he was first charged with corruption. Moreover, in 2005 he had [...]
President Motlanthe’s sex life and public morality
Things are obviously getting rather dirty in the internal battles in the ANC. What am I saying: not getting dirty, getting even MORE dirty. First there were the stories of President Kgalema Motlanthe thrashing the house he was renting in Sandton. And then this weekend, newspapers reported that our President – who is married – [...]
The NPA, the Minister and the headless chickens
I see the ANC in Parliament is suggesting that the NPA Act might have to be looked at to “clarify” the relationship between the executive (specifically the Minister of Justice) and the NPA, given the fact that the SCA differed from Judge Nicholson about the exact nature of this relationship (and Frene Ginwala’s quasi-judicial report again [...]
