Auditor general Terence Nombembe has lobbed his annual hand grenade into the laps of the politicians, the local government audit report. As always, it is packed with explosive material. Sadly, however, the incendiary fizzles and splutters but never explodes. While the collapse of local government annually excites ritualistic consternation and lamentation, nothing much is done […]
William Saunderson-Meyer
This Jaundiced Eye column appears in Weekend Argus, The Citizen, and Independent on Saturday. WSM is also a book reviewer for the Sunday Times and Business Day. Follow @TheJaundicedEye.
Posted inNews/Politics
Shirking teachers need to be caned by their pupils
Research tells us that a disconcertingly large number of Americans fear the Illuminati, the Knights Templar and the Elders of Zion. These gullible souls swallow the air candy of the conspiracy theorists that such evil organisations are plotting global domination, although there’s no evidence that they even exist beyond the imagination of the likes of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Free when-it-suits-us Market Foundation
When one finds oneself cheering the combined team of the Tobacco Institute and the Free Market Foundation – the latter with surely about as much credibility in a post-financial meltdown world as the Lenin Institute of Economic Innovation – one must perhaps pause and head for a neurological examination. Certainly it was disconcerting to be […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Now, now, kiddies! Mother knows best
The infantalisation of South African adults proceeds apace. The nanny state has already decreed how much exposure – precisely none – we are to be allowed to character sapping tobacco and booze advertising. Now it is the turn of Cape Town, which revels in its casting as the ‘mother’ city, to embrace the heavy-handed exercise […]
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ANC policy conference ignores the burning issue of the day
The African National Congress’ policy conference kicked off in Johannesburg this week. Its intellectual equivalent of mud wrestling was over a truckload of documents analysing party organisational renewal, nationalisation, job creation, investment and land redistribution. There was also President Jacob Zuma’s catchily titled but ponderously composed Second Transition centrepiece of policy proposals, which is his […]
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Huffing and puffing at the bus company from hell
It is just possibly the most despised commercial entity in South Africa. It has been threatened with closure by ministers, targeted by cops and sued for millions. It’s the intercity bus company from hell that regardless just keeps on trucking. SA Roadlink, labelled ‘Deathlink’ by its detractors, has, since its inception six years ago, been […]
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Street politics: A new twist to an old tactic
The yoof are on the march. Again. It does not make for a pretty picture, although it is a politically fascinating one. The issues vary from train fares at the micro level to unemployment, rural deprivation and racism at the macro. The strategy, however, is uniform, calculated and well tested in South Africa. It is […]
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The Empire loyalists wipe away a tear
So was it really that touching? Or is the Anglophone world just having one of its periodic attacks of mass hysteria? Not touched in the heart, just touched in the head. If they weren’t dabbing their eyes at the 60th jubilee of that aged foreign queen, Elizabeth II, it would be something else. The weepy […]
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Bad news for good children
‘Suffer little children to come to me…’ That’s the comforting injunction with which Sunday School kiddies are assured that their innocence affords them a special place in their God’s heart, as recorded in the Eezee English of the so-called Good News version of the Bible. In an imaginary Bad News Bible, edited to reflect today’s […]
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Prim Lizzy could teach thin-skinned Zuma a thing or two
It defies comprehension. This is a man televised prancing around in loinskin and incongruous white takkies, his man-breasts roiling and thunderous thighs wobbling, to celebrate the acquisition of yet another wife. This is a man with a harem but who is caught diddling with women a third of his age. At least two were the […]
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Cosatu tries to give marching orders to the DA
The opposition was looking for trouble, so there should be no surprise that stones flew and heads were cracked. Any moron should realise that a march on union headquarters by a despised rival would spark violence. That’s the response of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) […]
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No skaam. The dire state of an increasingly brazen SA
South Africa is in a dire state. Incompetence and irresponsibility are rife. Bad behaviour is the norm and few dare challenge it, which contributes to the undermining of democracy. No, that’s not opposition Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille, on song. Boiled down, that’s the view of Auditor-General Terence Nombombe. He was this week lamenting the […]