Hello and welcome! This little weekly column will present politics at its most absurd. SAtired supports freedom of speech, small government, and free markets. We’re liberals like Helen Suzman not ‘liberals’ like America’s AOC. This is NOT a safe space!
The Weekly Squib*
- squib /skwɪb/ noun: squib 1. a small firework that issues a hissing sound before exploding into a short piece of satirical writing.
Strike for wages to buy more luxury cars ♂️
Bronkhorstspruit has a hospital. It desperately needs 150 new beds to deal with the Covid-19 surge. The municipality was assured they’d be ready by 15 December 2020.
So what did they get? Greedy subcontractors (encouraged by a local ANC councillor) downed tools, demanding more money to finish the job. Why, you may ask? Simple; they had squandered the money they had already received on expensive cars!
It gets better. All of this is putting pressure on car manufacturer BMW, which is funding the hospital expansion as a social responsibility project.
In the optimistic but dishonest way favoured by provincial premiers, Gauteng Premier David Makhura claimed last week that the hospital upgrade was expected to be completed by the end of this month. This isn’t likely: the hospital can expect delays in getting staff and equipment.
But why are the extra beds being set up so far from the densely populated parts of Tshwane where the need is greatest? Extra beds at the Mamelodi and Kalafong hospitals would have helped to take strain off the Steve Biko Hospital, where patients are being treated in tents in the parking lot. Perhaps BMW would be better suited to a parking lot project.
And finally – where is the field hospital in Rosslyn that Makhura promised in May 2020, with the assistance of Nissan and BMW?
Car manufacturers, repeat after me: ‘We can’t help people by working with government.’
They’re coming for Nathi Mthethwa!
And on the cultural front … Minister of Sports, Art and Culture, Nathi “Marikana” Mthethwa, is being accused of not knowing what he’s doing. Surprise! Mthethwa tweeted on Friday 15 January that ‘South African theatre is alive and well’.
Apparently that opinion wasn’t shared by some artists, arts organisations, and members of the theatre and dance sector. In time-honoured South African tradition they started a petition. The artists requested his resignation by 31 January 2021 or his replacement by February 2021.
Mthethwa deleted the tweet and apologised. Didn’t help though; they still want him to go.
Mthethwa was proof that incompetent ministers are redeployed to the arts ministry to sit out their time just to earn their full pension rights.
The petition should demand that the whole ministry shut down. It has no value. Having sport in the same ministerial basket as arts is like having social welfare in defence. And why do we even have ministers for these things? Is any value added by having a minister of arts or sports?
Embarrassing fawning by the media
Many South Africans were genuinely saddened by the death from Covid-19 of Minister in the Presidency, Jackson Mthembu.
His colleagues appeared to be very affected by his death.
Although he came to prominence years ago when he was charged for drunken driving on a Cape Town highway early one morning, he was probably the cabinet’s most liked minister. He seemed to have some guts and definitely had a sense of humour.
But his death – and the inauguration of Joe Biden – brought out the worst in the media. On a news segment on Radio 702 on Thursday 21 January, the news reader said under “Breaking news” that the nation was in shock and mourning for Jackson Mthembu! A tad presumptuous?
But the OTP award goes to CNN’s Political Director David Chalian: ‘Those lights that are just shooting out of the Lincoln memorial along the reflecting pool, it’s like almost extensions of Joe Biden‘s arms embracing America. It was a moment where the new president came to town and sort of convened the country in this moment of remembrance, outstretching his arms…”
Here’s a link if you can stomach it: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/gutfeld-media-fawning-president-biden
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