It simply boggles the mind how unsubstantiated drivel like Lynne Brown's wild accusations about the Western Cape Government ‘purging' black staff can even be a news item. She did not produce a shred of evidence to back her claim, not even a single witness who could attest to this nonsensical allegation.

Principled, evidence-based criticism by the opposition is one thing - in fact, it is to be welcomed because that is the stuff of competitive politics that builds and sustains a healthy democracy. For the reading public to be fed this kind of schlock distracts from real issues that should be the substance of public discourse.

We are in the run-up to the 2014 general elections so it is to be expected that the ANC in the Western Cape will fling every possible false accusation against the Western Cape Government, not because they know or can prove any of them to be true but simply because they can and they know the media will report on and amplify these falsehoods - all in the vain hope that these accusations will stick in the public mind.

Will the mainstream media carry each of these farcical pronouncements as if they are serious news items? Should conspiracy theories then not also receive coverage in print media and on the airwaves? Perhaps the ANC's provincial leadership is all comprised of members of a reptilian extra-terrestrial race that gathers every third Thursday on Table Mountain to dance around a block of cheese and sing praises to the Pastafarian Supreme Deity, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

There is no evidence for this claim but it should probably be written up anyway.

Zak Mbhele

Spokesperson for Premier Helen Zille

This letter first appeared in the Cape Times and Cape Argus.

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