[Now here is a news story that is so typical of the ANC.

It is about wastage – in this case, wastage by municipality top brass on furniture for themselves.

But isn”t this so typical of the ANC? All image and no substance! Watch them – you”ll see it all the time. Bold walk, big talk… stuff all achievement (except when it comes to stealing from White people). That”s the ANC in a nutshell… Mouthing off about how marvellous they are, and the amazing things they”re going to do … but you will see no progress.

Does anyone remember President Mbeki strutting his stuff? He wasn”t just gonna rebuild S.Africa? No way! That”s too small a job for Mbeki-the-Superman. He was gonna fricking rebuild all of Africa – with the African Renaissance! Leonardo-Da-Vinci-Mbeki, was gonna invent a myriad of things and he was gonna fix Africa, and, maybe even sort out the United Nations or the Middle East… for practise. AFRICAN RENAISSANCE!! It was on everyone”s lips. BOLD. A MOVER! A SHAKER! And… fizzle… I see zilch. Do you? Did Mbeki”s mighty African Renaissance ever get further than the hot air did which came out of his mouth?

Remember when the former White National Party Govt said: You can”t build 5 million houses in 5 years? The ANC said: Phooey – you”re just trying to keep the Black down… WE”LL DO IT! Now… 11 years later, amidst fudged figures, cheap houses which fall apart when the rains come, etc… the ANC proudly says: Hey, we built 1 million crappy houses in 11 years!! Yeeeeee haaaaaa…. we”re THE MEN!!! Who”s your Daddy? Funny… they said they could do it in 1 year … and they mocked the Whites when we said it could not be done. But as usual… they forget the history that does not suit them.

If God says he can create the universe in 7 days, the ANC would say they could do it in 10 minutes… 90 billion years later… they would still have done nothing … but … for 90 billion years, your ears are gonna be ringing with all that bold TALK!!!

The one thing the ANC is good at is finding ways of slowing the country down, and getting parts of it into reverse.

I noticed a White guy, from somewhere in Govt, saying on Tv: “The population growth is 2.5% and we have a backlog… and families are getting smaller, therefore housing needs are doubling… blah blah blah… big Black Housing Backlog… will need millions more houses.”

Funny! I remember writing pretty similar things years ago. I said: “Black population growth is so rapid it will negate anything they achieve in terms of Black housing… and I believe… they will be lucky… if they can even manage to keep the backlog at the same levels. Indeed, I believe, the backlog will grow.” My suggestion was: Grow the economy, let Blacks build their own houses themselves… in the end, they”ll probably be better off and it wouldn”t have cost the Govt a cent. All this socialist nonsense does not work.

I also notice the ANC”s figures on housing, and the backlog… all seem to have shrunk somewhat. I wonder if they”re going to ignore millions of promised houses because they just won”t be able to do it?

Anyway, here is the story about the ANC taking more interest in getting some nice fancy office furniture for themselves rather than helping the Blacks, whom they are always reminding us, are their top priority in life!!!

I must add, this “team” is supposed to be an A-Team of ANC “Boffins, Einsteins, Movers, Shakers, Doers”… It appears, the only moving they were doing was moving furniture into their own offices!! Jan]

After less than three months in office, the City of Cape Town”s top-level “Inkwezi Team” has wasted no time in buying new furniture and equipment and refurbishing a committee room – at an estimated cost of R3-million.

This is R1-million more than the Western Cape administration has contributed to one of Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo”s favourite projects – the Smile-a-Child campaign to get hundreds of children off the city”s streets.

And, as the end of the financial year looms next week, City Manager Wallace Mgoqi has approved an application to do away with normal tender processes in an effort to fast-track the “urgent need to procure furniture and equipment”.

“New desks, chairs will be purchased to replace old and inadequate furniture”

This means the city bought the furniture and equipment and did the refurbishment through direct negotiations with companies on the municipal database.

A report in possession of the Cape Argus, signed for approval by Mgoqi last month, indicates that the furniture is to be used for the newly appointed executive directors, directors and senior managers.

According to another document, which details the purchase and delivery dates of the furniture, items include a R4 437 executive desk with black leather inlay, eight black leather visitors” armchairs at R3 135 each, two black leather double seater couches at R13 420 each, 48 executive highback chairs at R2 823 each, and a R4 965 black leather executive armchair.

The city has so far spent more than R2-million of the R3-million allocated for this purpose, according to the document.

It will be funded from the city”s capital budget, which is meant for capital projects like roads, libraries, water and sanitation.

Mfeketo”s spokesperson Mandla Tyala refused to dispute or confirm if the city had allocated R3m for this project.

He refused to answer any questions posed to him and only dictated the following statement: “The City of Cape Town is spending R580 000 to refurbish one of the function rooms used by senior officials and visiting business and public sector partners for meeting presentations and seminars in the Civic Centre.”

“New desks, chairs will be purchased to replace old and inadequate furniture.”

“Sound and audio visual equipment in the (committee) room will be upgraded.”

As at the end of April, the city had only spent about 30 percent of its capital budget, three months before the end of this financial year on June 30.

The Democratic Alliance has said that this “wasteful expenditure” on furniture is a means of trying to use up the capital budget before then.

“The real reason (for the release of capital funds) is probably that the city manager wishes to use funds that were not spent on roads, water treatment plants, clinics, libraries, etc, before the end of this financial year,” said DA councillor Ian Neilson.

“It seems that the city manager believes that where the comfort of the executive staff is concerned, the usual (tender process) rules do not apply.”

“The DA condemns this wasteful expenditure and the lack of tender processes when there is no justification for doing so.”

ID councillor David Sassman said there was “nothing wrong” with the committee room, which has been earmarked for refurbishment.

“If you go to Committee Room 3, you will see that there is nothing wrong with it.”

“It is in an excellent condition and one begins to ask the question: what warrants this sort of expenditure?”

The work will be carried out by the companies Office Focus, Cecil Nurse and All Office. – Staff Reporter.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Argus on June 23, 2005

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…br>