SUMMARY:

In presenting his mini-budget to Parliament, Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni once again faced the near impossible task of trying to prevent government from spending more than it has, while maintaining what is one of the most redistributive economies in the world. Placing an aloe on his lectern he gave an update: the aloe is not doing well. “Our problem,” he said, “Is that we spend more than we earn.”

The long-running legal drama starring our former president continued with Jacob Zuma now maintaining the Pietermaritzburg high court “misfocused” on the gist of his permanent stay of prosecution application and was biased against him when it dismissed it. Zuma also dodged the latest round of the Zondo commission of enquiry in to state capture claiming he was ill.

For someone who continues to insist on his innocence of all the charges listed against him, Zuma seems to be going to extraordinary lengths to avoid having the opportunity to clear his name in court…

The deluges (including a tornado) that caused widespread damage and death across swathes of KwaZulu-Natal put all thoughts of drought out of most people’s minds. However, agricultural body, AgriSA, forcefully reminded the country of the damage drought has already caused and warned of the peril that exists if the government is not forthcoming with aid.

In the same week this was happening, Australia was hit by some of the worst bush fires on record, another timely reminder of the scary spectre of climate change…

Forcing SAA under was probably not the intention of the unions who went on strike demanding an eight per cent increase but that could well be the result. As Parliament was told the SOE is bankrupt, having run up a debt of over R28billion over the past 13-years. With little prospect of the situation improving there no longer seems any good reason to keep it on life support.

Non-compliance with key regulations as well as lack of accountability and consequence management were blamed for the regression in KZN provincial audit outcomes which saw the province get six qualified opinions for 2018/9, compared to four received in 2017/8. Only the Department of Social Development and the Provincial Treasury managed to score clean audits.

A never before seen affidavit, deposed by a former employee of On-Point Engineering, contains explosive evidence that EFF leader Julius Malema’s extravagant lifestyle was funded with money from Limpopo public coffers. For reasons it has not, to date, made clear the NPA chose to ignore this evidence and dropped the charges against Malema some time ago.

Having assured the public it wouldn’t happen in the near future embattled power utility Eskom once again introduced load-shedding. With the country teetering on recession, the impact of this was expected to be devastating with many companies and businesses predicting a bleak Christmas and a “worst ever” festive period.

Always happy to flog a dead horse I decided to make both my Christmas and New Year cartoons Eskom-related as well…

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