Zuma, the Grand Master

I don’t know about you but I have never been one for chess. Moving small chiselled pieces around a chequered board has always seemed a little unnecessary for me – and hardly great entertainment. I find there are many other activities that keep me entertained. For a good laugh, there’s little to beat watching the evening news – although I do have a strange sense of humour. I’m not sure how our president enjoys chess but I suspect he would be rather good at it if he gave it a try.

Jacob Zuma

Let’s face it, most of us view our president as a bit of a dim, bald Casanova. Personally, I imagine him at the G20 summits, World Economic Conferences and various other shindigs that those in power tend to congregate at spending less time paying any attention to any of the serious discussions and a little more time checking out the ladies. I can imagine him leaning across and seducing Angela Merkel with goat herding tales from his youth during debates on the effects of global warming on developing economies, all the while nonchalantly resting a hand on her knee.

This is, I am sure, a misconception, and one which Mr. Zuma uses to his own advantage. The skilful way in which he manoeuvred himself out of standing trial for the arms deal irregularities testifies to his understanding of the system, how to circumvent its controls and the enormous loyalty he enjoys with those whom he carefully deployed in key positions. It’s a story that books have been written about and there’s certainly no space to go into the details here.

Recently, Bheki Cele has caught a fair amount of flack for the property deals in Pretoria and Durban. The media have been eager to see his name dragged through the mud and the opposition have jumped at the opportunity to call for his head. But I wonder if he was not merely another pawn – a minion – in the grand scheme designed by Mr. Zuma.

Let’s consider the facts:

• After the Public Protector was asked to investigate the deals, she instructed that the agreements be put on hold until the investigation had been completed. The Minister of Public Works, Geoff Doidge, did exactly that.
• Shortly thereafter he was relieved of his position by Mr. Zuma and a new Minister of Public Works, Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, was appointed in his place.
• One of her first actions was to re-institute the lease agreement for the Pretoria building in contravention of the Public Protector’s instructions.
• The original lease agreement for the Durban building fell through on the small technicality that Shabangu didn’t actually own the building.
• Not one to be upset by such small set backs, Mrs. Mahlangu-Nkabinde immediately put the lease to tender again. Roux Shabangu again seems to be the frontrunner to win this one for twice the rental for the Police’s current building.
• When the Public Protector came back with the results of the investigation, i.e. that the lease was illegal, it was all but ignored and no action has yet been taken.

The Public Protector will find it very hard to hold anyone to account – she can approach the NPA and ask for charges to be raised but Menzi Simelane is a Zuma stooge; Cele is involved in the whole affair so the police won’t be interested… if only we had an independent crime fighting unit – just like that envisaged in the constitution… Oh, yes… what ever happened to them?

See what I mean? Zuma has shuffled all the pieces around the board and left us with very little room to move. He only has one or two more moves left to make – the Protection of information bill and a Media Tribunal are dangerously draconian measures which would make it impossible for the media to report on any of these issues without serious repercussions – and it will be checkmate.

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In other news…

REFERENCES
Police building deal back on track
The SAPS and the 'dodgy' office deal
Free-spending Shiceka's head is set to roll

Sicelo Shiceka may well have his comeuppance after all. After lying on his CV, wasting huge wads of cash on trips to Switzerland to visit his girlfriend in jail, building himself a mansion in an impoverished part of the Eastern Cape and getting service delivery the fellow residents could only dream of, generally not doing a very good job and making the entire government under Zuma look even more inept and corrupt than they already did by getting all this splashed all over the papers, he’s finally ticked Zuma off: by naming Cape Town as the best run municipality. I’m glad to see that Zuma has his priorities straight. I hope that Zille has taken full advantage of this gift from the ANC government – we’re unlikely to see a DA-run municipality win anything from the government again, even if they are the only municipalities that are not bankrupt.