15 July 2020 – 17:00

The mellifluously soporific tones used by the president to scold and punish the nation on Sunday night came too late in the evening to concentrate fully on the manner in which he twisted the truth. He claims the mess the government has made of the economy, its response to the pandemic and the health-care system is entirely the fault of the citizenry.

The about 20-million who are hungry, the 18-million plus who receive grants, the rapidly shrinking 16-million who have jobs — all must share the blame.

Of each rand the government spends, 62c goes to the salaried loyal cadres in our bloated public administration and 22c to servicing the burgeoning national debt. That leaves 16c in the rand for everything else needed, including funding to build infrastructure and create jobs as well as fix the education, justice and health-care systems.

Have no fear: the ANC has a plan; one which it calls the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). Quasi prime minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma says she will use the pandemic as an opportunity to accelerate radical economic transformation to the point of committing “class suicide” if needs be.

Securing hegemonic control via deployed ANC cadres who collapse the state into the party is the plan behind a leaked “top secret” document of seditious proportions.

Members of the cabinet, who swore to uphold the constitution, are planning to perpetrate a travesty of accountability because the NDR, with or without class suicide, is the antithesis of multiparty democracy under the rule of law.

The NDR should be scrapped, because it is both unworkable and inconsistent with the constitution.

Paul Hoffman, Accountability Now