OUT TO LUNCH
It wouldn’t have taken a genius to work out that the lifestyles led by people like Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu (who claim to represent the dispossessed and the poorest of the poor) are pretty excessive compared to what they earn, even as ludicrously well-paid members of parliament. Add to this the fact that, prior to 1994, they were oppressed and disenfranchised and highly unlikely to have amassed a secret personal fortune due to the hideous apartheid system.
So it’s quite amazing that, in the thirty years since the dawn of democracy, they have become as rich as Croesus while most of their EFF constituency have continued to languish in poverty. Maybe they spent frugally when they first became elected politicians and invested the bulk of their monthly salary in Bitcoin when it was still trading at around $1 000. Maybe they shorted Steinhoff shares in November 2017 and reaped the benefits. Or maybe they decided to keep the company of dodgy individuals knowing that they could extract some monetary value from the relationships. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Neither Malema nor Shivambu are known to be shy retiring individuals when it comes to self-publicity. They are bling deluxe and they don’t care who knows it. They happily flaunt their immense (and unexplained) wealth on social media and love being photographed at swanky events and in designer clothes. It is alleged that Mr Malema (son of the soil and champion of the poor and downtrodden) is a regular visitor to the luxury stores in Sandton City and has a personal shopper to help him buy the correct items. He prefers them to be wrapped in plain carrier bags though just in case the designer labels attract the attention of the envious proletariat.
One of the items mentioned in a well-researched article by Daily Maverick’s Pauli van Wyk in September 2019 (following the VBS bank raid) is a tailored suit which cost R415 000. I’ve had a few bespoke suits made in South Africa and none have come anywhere near to costing that.
My sources in London tell me that a bespoke Savile Row suit from Gieves and Hawkes or Huntsman would set you back the equivalent of R120 000 and would almost certainly look a lot better than the weird get up Mr Malema parades around in when he’s not dressed in his red ‘onesie’.
Other costs on the Malema shopping list for the period 2017-2018 were R67 800 at Gucci, R15 760 at Lacoste and R35 000 at Louis Vuitton.
Now, I must confess that I have never shopped at any of the above so I may be ill qualified to make judgement on the superior quality of their merchandise over the competition. I have always suspected that ‘designer’ stores are ludicrously overpriced and often filled with garish tat which has been made in an Indonesian sweatshop by child labourers.
It’s a bit like artisanal gin in a way. Can you really tell the difference between Gordon’s at R189 a bottle and a well-known brand of local artisanal gin at R450 a bottle, particularly when you’ve added a sickly sweet tonic water? And if you can tell the difference, could you please tell me exactly what I should be tasting which makes it R261 more expensive? After all, the alcohol level is exactly the same.
The same argument applies to whisky. I was given a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label many years ago. It came in a very fancy silk lined box. So when I had finished the Johnnie Blue I kept the bottle in the box and topped it up with Johnnie Black Label and only poured it for my most honoured guests. None of them spat it out and accused me of pulling a fast one.
On the contrary, my reputation as a ludicrously generous host went far and wide. (My belated apologies here to anyone who came to my house and believed they were drinking Johnnie Blue. Think of it as a social experiment).
The black diamonds who used to crowd the tables at The Butcher’s Shop in Sandton Square twelve years ago would insist that the expensive bottles were left on the table to show that they were people of substance and had money to burn.
I have known some very wealthy people over the years and none of them would dream of flaunting their wealth in such a vulgar fashion. Quite the contrary in fact. One of the wealthiest men I have ever met drives a very modest car, shops at Woollies, never wears designer labels and favours Blue Sapphire gin over all others.
But that is the difference when it comes to spending your own money and blowing stolen money. When you’ve accumulated your own modest fortune through hard work and careful financial planning you tend to be rather more circumspect when it comes to spending. Do you buy the German SUV for R1.7 million or do you buy the Chinese made SUV which does all the same things for less than a third of the price? Of course, much will depend on your need to accelerate from 0-100km/h in 6.1 seconds as opposed to 8.5 seconds for the cheapo car. That works out to about R480 000 a second which tends to lend credence to the saying that ‘time is money’.
The point is that when you’re spending your own money then you should be perfectly free to make illogical spending choices such as the one described above. However, when you’re spending about R16 million taken from the poor as Malema and Shivambu (and others) are alleged to have done you shouldn’t be free to make any spending choices. The fact that the stolen money has been blown on so many vulgar, overpriced frivolities just rubs the noses of the poor VBS victims even deeper into the dirt.
A couple of weeks ago I was taken to task for suggesting that a special corruption court should be set up to deal with cases like the VBS bank heist. Bearing in mind the sensational revelations following the publication of former VBS bank boss Tshifhiwa Matodzi’s full and frank affidavit together with the excellent investigative journalism of Pauli van Wyk it seems that we need a dedicated corruption court now more than ever.
I suspect that very few South Africans have the respect and confidence they once had for the judiciary and probably even less so now that we learn that impeached former judge John ‘Slippery’ Hlophe will be helping to choose future judges.
Cases take ages to come to court, many hearings are postponed or dismissed on the flimsiest of excuses and it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the politically powerful are being protected through these constant delays. As the ANC frequently chirp, ‘people are presumed innocent until proven guilty’ which works very well if the accused are guaranteed to never see the inside of a functioning courtroom.
Not surprisingly the alleged guilty parties mentioned in the affidavit have all professed innocence as one would expect them to do. If they don’t expect to ever have to appear in a courtroom to answer charges then what would be the point of saying, “it’s a fair cop guv, I’ll come quietly”?
On the 12th July the National Procrastinating Authority sprung into action and published a press release on their Twitter page:
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) strongly condemns the unlawful leaking of an affidavit in the VBS case pic.twitter.com/LXl6HZuNrg
— NPASouthAfrica (@NPA_Prosecutes) July 12, 2024
Like me, you may find it odd that the NPA wants to devote time to investigating the leak and possibly prosecuting those responsible rather than going after the many names mentioned in the affidavit. As for the “multipronged and long-term prosecution-guided strategy”; well we haven’t seen much evidence of that in the past five years. But at least the dear old NPA have been woken from their slumbers and are aware of the affidavit, even if they are trying to nab the law-abiding innocent while letting the guilty get away. It’s real Keystone Cops stuff isn’t it?
With a National Prosecuting Authority this clueless is it any wonder that well connected political figures feel that they can get away with anything?
