The country’s most publicly exposed undercover agent, Brown Mogotsi, arrived in parliament this week sporting an Our Perfect Wedding jacket that reminded Hogarth of that comical former ANC MP Boy Mamabolo.
When asked how he thought he’d fare before parliament’s ad hoc committee, Mogotsi sounded defeated already. “This is a process where one has to be grilled. You know, for meat — T-bone or anything — to be nice, it must go through the fire.”
Unfortunately the ad hoc committee grilling extended too late into the night for reporters to ask Mogotsi afterwards if he thought he was medium rare, medium well, or well done.
Cracking under surveillance
To boost his claim that he’s from the intelligence community, Mogotsi — born in 1979 — repeatedly asserted he had been part of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, which he claimed he joined in 1993. When it was pointed out to him that he couldn’t have been (because not only would he have been 13 at the time, but the ANC disbanded its armed wing that year), he changed his tune to say he’d been a member of one of the self-defence units trained by former MK members inside the country in the early 1990s.
However, under intense questioning by the Patriotic Alliance’s Ashley Sauls, Mogotsi admitted he’d taken part in no paramilitary activities at all.
Now, Hogarth knows Mogotsi took issue with an MP who last week called self-styled forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan “a white Brown Mogotsi”, but considering the similar gaps in the two men’s stories about their alleged links to security and intelligence services, Hogarth says, “If the shoe fits …”
Plane speaking
Speaking of O’Sullivan, he really made a mampara of himself by walking out of the ad hoc committee meeting while he was still being questioned by one of the evidence leaders. Granted, he may have had a plane to catch, but surely the few minutes he would have spent answering a few more questions wouldn’t have made much difference. After all, he went on to waste that same amount of time arguing with the MK Party’s Mazolman Skhosana and fielding questions from reporters in the parliamentary precinct.
Speaking of Skhosana, when he rose from his seat and rushed to the door as O’Sullivan was packing up his belongings, Hogarth feared a physical confrontation. Luckily, good sense prevailed, and both men calmed themselves down. But Hogarth couldn’t help noticing that, as O’Sullivan walked past him, Skhosana — in his camouflage jacket — looked rather like a school-gate watchman who had just been exposed as having no power to stop anyone from leaving the premises.
Budget buddies
Our fedora-wearing finance minister was back in parliament this week to present the state of the country’s finances. And this time, to Old Hog’s great relief, there was no acrimony over the country’s more than R2-trillion budget — unlike last year, when Enoch Godongwana’s ill-fated plan to raise VAT by two percentage points led to much strife.
The standoff was so bad there was even an off-mic incident in which Godongwana admonished Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter over tax proposals, and then went on to have a bust-up with Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago. But all that nastiness was forgotten this week as the three smoked the peace pipe, with Godongwana heaping praise on the other two for collecting revenue efficiently and improving macroeconomic performance with inflation targeting. And so the commissioner and the governor went into the death cage with Godongwana and won!
What’s in a name?
While President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government continue to politely urge Western powers and other rich economies to support raw-mineral beneficiation in Africa, Zimbabwe’s mines & mining development minister is done with playing nice.
The minister this week announced the suspension of all lithium-concentrate exports with immediate effect. And if some exporters thought the “immediate” in this case was defined as it is in the Senzo Mchunu dictionary, he made it clear the ban affected “even those shipments already in transit”. Zimbabwe, as he had said before, was tired of being a mere “quarry” for foreign industry and wanted foreign companies to start processing lithium and other minerals locally.
The not-so-polite minister’s statement seems to have worked, as at least one Chinese lithium producer has now announced plans to build a new lithium processing plant in Zimbabwe.
And the minister’s name? Polite Kambamura. Which only goes to show one must never judge a politician by his name.
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