Boris Johnson

SUMMARY:

As the Australian bush-fires continued to rage across large tracts of the continent – by early January an estimated 5 million hectares had been destroyed (as opposed to 906 000 hectares in the Amazon fires) – its governments initial tepid response and refusal to acknowledge the true extent of the crisis attracted widespread criticism. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s own inability to utter the words “climate change” without breaking in to a cold sweat also showed a woeful reluctance to engage with the issues presented.

In the same week that it was reported that the two big KZ-N municipalities, Msunduzi and uMgungdlovu, were muscling up against each other to become a regional metro, Pietermaritzburg was visited by two ANC heavyweights, Zweli Mkhize and Blade Nzimande. They were both blunt in their assessment. The city is filthy, it stinks and its leadership is useless.

Eskom continued to be in the news for all the wrong reasons with the embattled power utility now saying that if it is not granted the substantial tariff increases it wants from March, its finances might collapse, triggering a national crisis, as both the state’s credit ratings and consumers’ well being would suffer. Responding to this, Melanie Veness, CEO of the Pietermaritzburg and Midlands Chamber of Business, warned that the proposed increases would be the final nail in the coffin for local businesses and would lead to retrenchments and a greater strain on the already struggling business sector.

Under pressure from detractors and enemies both inside and outside government and the ANC, Public Enterprises Minister, Pravin Gordhan, said he was following a mandate given to him by President Cyril Ramaphosa and that he must be left alone to complete the task he was given. With load-shedding costing the country between R59billion and R118billion in 2019, one can only hope he succeeds with his Eskom turnaround strategy.

After several years of acrimonious debate, the United Kingdom officially left the European Union on the 31^st January, 2020. The country’s exit will undoubtedly prove to be British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s, biggest victory. At the same time it is very much a leap in to the dark and whatever happens in the coming stages of the Brexit process things look set to get more, not less, tricky.

The University of KwaZulu-Natal shut its doors after a week of violent protests which saw several buildings set alight on both the Pietermaritzburg and Durban campuses. Condemning, the incidents, the Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, said “These attacks look like well-orchestrated acts of sabotage and criminality meant to undermine and reverse the already achieved milestones reached with the South African Union of Students.”

Ignoring the loutish behaviour of Julius Malema and the EFF, President Cyril Ramaphosa implored South Africans to “…not allow fear to stand in our way” in his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) to Parliament. While his national call to action contained some positive announcements, the fear remains that with state finances in dire straits, the economy all but ground to a halt and state companies floundering, the president will allow himself to remain captured by party dogma and constrained by indecision.

Former President, Jacob Zuma, continued to use every trick in the book to avoid his day of reckoning in court, charged with corruption. Having presented a sick note to excuse his absence – it was rejected by Judge Dhaya Pillay of the Supreme Court because the dates appeared to have been altered – Zuma then went on to accuse the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of employing Apartheid-era tactics against him.

He also insisted that these were not deliberate delaying tactics on his part…

A proposal to cut the state’s wage bill by R160,2 billion over the next three years as Treasury warns of ever-rising debt repayments, was one of the key announcements of the 2020 budget, presented by Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni. The move was immediately opposed by the Public Services Union (PSA) who vowed to fight any threat to freeze public servants’ salary increases.

SUMMARY: Pietermaritzburg’s woes continued with the municipality calling for urgent action to be taken to deal with the City’s runaway debtor’s book, which has run to more than R3,5 billion.

Former president, Jacob Zuma, made his underwhelming appearance before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry in to state capture, largely repeating what he has been saying for years – it is all a plot, there are spies afoot, there is no such thing as state capture.

Across the sea, Boris Johnson, the Brexiteer who has promised to lead Britain out of the European Union with or without a deal by the end of October, was elected to replace Theresa May as prime minister after winning the leadership of the Conservative Party.

The eThekwini Municipality finally owned up to the fact that Durban’s R170 million infrastructure projects have been wrecked by so-called “business forums” who have been extorting businesses for years. The MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environment Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube told the legislature that the government will “deal” with these business forums – many of whom were allies of the state capture faction of the ANC.

Even closer to home, a task team set up by the ANC to investigate the ongoing shenanigans in the Msunduzi Municipality, recommended the entire municipal top brass be axed including Mayor Themba Njilo. As if to emphasise the extent of the rot, the very next day it was revealed that the KZN Hawks were investigating a case of fraud against City officials over a R45 million swimming pool tender.

The following week the Msunduzi Municipality found itself without political leadership as the ANC Provincial Executive Committee (PEC), acting on its task team’s recommendation, duly removed the mayor and the entire executive committee (Exco).

The gap was later filled when the ANC KwaZulu-Natal leadership announced former Msunduzi councillor Mzimkulu Thebola as the new mayor of the municipality. The appointment of the relatively unknown Thebola was made on the back of speculation that the problems with the region and Msunduzi ANC caucus had resulted in high profile candidates declining to take the Msunduzi mayoral position.

I decided to end the month by tackling a subject very close to my heart – the environment. In this respect, it was a bad week for Pietermaritzburg with toxic effluent being spilled in to the Duzi river, toxic fumes being discharged in to the air from the burning municipal landfill site and uncollected rubbish left lying on the streets.

For the purposes of my cartoon, however, I chose to have a go at the denialist-in-chief, US President Donald Trump…