Politics.za

You can not make this stuff up:

Food courier company Mr Delivery has blacklisted parliament after orders worth thousands of rands were cancelled at the last minute.

The Gardens branch implemented the measure after 20 separate orders for food, some for as much as R1 500, were cancelled at the last minute.

Don’t they have interns to do the KFC run?

The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Amendment Bill (RICA) was passed by the National Assembly yesterday. We’ve spoken about this law before. It is quite simply one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed by government.

It’s intended purpose is to fight crime by registering every cellphone SIM card in use in the country. That’s at least 30 million cellphones of which I would bet 70% are pre-paid users although I would not be surprised if that percentage is higher. And it needs to be done within a year, which is close to impossible.

Any criminal with two brain cells to rub together will be able to circumvent this law in about 5 minutes. All it takes is a street person with a valid ID book and a bottle of cheap brandy. That of course assumes that said criminal does not have a fake ID in the first place. Meanwhile every other citizen in this country will have to register their phone or risk being cut off.

The terrible thing about this law is that millions of the poor and disadvantaged in South Africa rely on cellular telephones as their primary telecommunications means mainly due to Telkom refusing to service low income and rural areas, in contravention of their licensing agreement (but that’s a whole other story). If they are cut off it just makes their lives increasingly difficult. Who is going to employ you when you don’t have a reliable means of contact?

What’s really going to make the enforcement of this law really fun is that tourists and foreigners will have to register SIM cards in phones they bring into the country and because we use a GSM network a large chunk of European tourists bring their own phones when they visit. What’s better than standing in a half hour line at customs? Why standing in another 30 minute line to register your phone straight afterwards. With the volumes of people expected in 2010 for the World Cup there are going to be some flaring tempers at OR Tambo International Airport.

This law really is stupid and I have a hard time believing it will have any affect on crime. Actually scratch that, I know it will not have any effect.

The Eastern Cape branch of the ANC has publicly come out in support of the scrapping of legislation allowing floor crossing I’m sure to the delight of opposition parties.

The Eastern Cape branch is considered to be quite influential in the ANC, being the traditional ‘spiritual homeland’ of the Xhosa dominated ANC. However some of their recent actions seem to be be little more than attention grabbers, witness their proclamation that President Thabo Mbeki be allowed to rule for a third term. I hope this is not the case this time.

Parliament’s legal advisers believe that the proposed Film And Publication Amendment Bill (which we’ve covered before) is unconstitutional. Hopefully this will stop this idiotic piece of legislation from being passed but there’s always the chance the ANC will push this through parliament to be rubberstamped into law.

This law is as stupid as the RICA Amendment Bill (which I haven’t seen any activity over in almost a year). They both need to go into the legislative dustbin.

DA Federal Chairman Joe Seremane has stated that he will not seek the position of leader of the DA in parliament.

I don’t think I will. I’m not desperate. I stood for (national) party leader because a step had to be taken. I said my election would be a moment of truth for the party

I believe the extremely small number of votes he received (a mere 65 votes out of over 1000) during the DA leadership elections this past weekend probably played a factor in this decision.

Mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille has been elected as the new leader of the DA, beating out DA Federal Chairman Joe Seremane and Easter Cape Provinicial Leader Athol Trollip.

What’s interesting to me was the utter shellacking Joe Seremane received in the voting. Seremane received a mere 65 votes, compared to Zille’s 786. Even supposed no-hoper Athol Trollip received 228 votes. I’ll bet that some spin doctors in Luthuli House are making note of that.

Due to the fact that Zille will retain her position as Mayor of Cape Town and will not be present in parliament, the DA will have to appoint a parliamentary representative to take her place. I assume this will be Joe Seremane.

Although Zille is a competent and able leader I do hope that her reign as leader takes the form of night watchman rather than a long term leader. The DA is still facing a leadership crisis in that the top leadership is still dominated by white males. Perhaps we should be keeping an eye on some of the DA’s Young Guns?

Recently the Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers released a report recommending a number of pay increases. President Thabo Mbeki is recommended to receive a whopping 57% pay increase while Constitutional Court Chief Justice Pius Langa is recommended to receive an even larger 65% increase (which would bring his annual salary to R1.7 million).

Instead of protesting that the increases are a bit much considering the lack of pay rise for other more deserving civil servants (policemen, teachers, state doctors etc) national MPs are up in arms because they did not receive a comparable increase. Under the new recommendation MPs will now receive a salary of R643 800 a year. To put that in perspective the salary of a normal US congressman is only R909 372 ($125 000) and they have a history of turning down pay increases. To put that even more into perspective the average black household brings in an income of about R44 000 a year.

But how about a bit of cheese with this whine?

She said the proposed R643 800 package for MPs would also do little to stem the 84 percent turnover rate experienced among members of parliament.

I’m sorry what? You’re earning 10 times the average salary to rubberstamp whatever legislation the executive brings through parliament and you still don’t think you’re earning enough?

Mentor said MPs, already battling to put their children through school, were being forced to subsidise the state while carrying out their duties.

Who the hell struggles to send their kid to school on a R600 000 a year salary? Perhaps you should take them out of Miss Snooty’s Private School for Rich Kids and put them back into Joe Average Public School like most of the population has to as well.

She said that while a car allowance was provided, many MPs whose families live in other provinces find that they need to buy a second car to commute when they were in Cape Town.

While transport is provided for MPs to travel from parliamentary villages to parliament and back home again, it is operated on a strict time schedule and many MPs without their own car find themselves stranded in the village after 5pm and on weekends.

You know they have this thing in other countries, I think it’s called efficient public transport. Perhaps our MPs could put some effort into bringing that here.

Update: MPs reject proposed 5,4% pay rise

Angry MPs across the political spectrum have ditched their ideological differences and called an urgent multiparty meeting to discuss a proposed 5,4 percent salary increase, as opposed to the handsome pay hike for the executive.

The SABC is going to flight a 13 part series “90 Plein Street” depicting the life of a ANC chief whip and his ex-wfe (who is also an MP). The series describes the characer of the ex-wife as being

an independent-minded ANC MP … struggling to reconcile her own idealism and sense of justice with the requirements of the parliamentary system.

An ‘independent minded’ MP? At least we know for sure it’s a work of fiction.

Catch it on SABC2, every Wednesday at 21:30.

After it seemed that Thabo Mbeki got his kooky quadi-denialist AIDS theories after trawling the internet, you would think that the ANC would have educated it’s MPs on the fact that the internet is not exactly a source of scholarly excellence. You’d think so, but you’d be wrong.

So why is it that at a seminar on Religious Thoughts in Socio-Cultural Development held at UNISA (and somehow fittingly sponsored by the Iranian Embassy), following the presentation by Claudia Braude, who is Jewish, on SA’s role as a Mid-East ‘reconciler’ ANC MP Farida Mahomed posed the queston:

Are the protocols still relevant to you in today’s time? How do we apply this balanced approach to reconciliation when we read them and they are totally the opposite?

The protocols she mentions are of course a reference to the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion a hoax dreamed up by the Tsarist Russian police in the early 1900’s and one of the most famous pieces of anti-Semitic propaganda ever made.

That’s right folks we actually have an MP in parliament who for who knows how many years know has been in the belief that the “International Jew” is out to control the world. What’s going to happen when she finds out they don’t have horns and hooves? Her world view will be shattered!

Asked about her question later:

Mahomed said that she had read the protocols on the internet but had not researched them.

If she had she had taken the 30 seconds to plug “Protocols of The Elders of Zion” into Google the WikiPedia link would have been the first result where she would’ve learned that said protocols were debunked back in 1921.

I know in a democracy we’re supposed to get the government we deserve but what did we ever do to deserve this idiot?

The sexual harassment allegations against ANC Chief Whip Mbulelo Goniwe have “broken” him and it seems like he will not be returning to parliament. He is currently set to face an ANC disciplinary hearing.

This quote though is the highlight of the article:

I’m not in parliament for a living, but to serve the people.

Did he pause after that and look around nervously to make sure no one was laughing?