Better life for ANC staff elsewhere…

Even in a country where it is said, the jokes come straight from the news pages – yesterday’s protest by the ANC against the ANC was bizarre.

On one side you had the “workers” – those employed by the ANC and who haven’t been paid in three months – and on the other, the “bosses”, those running the ANC.

Yet, there in the ranks of the workers were some of the bosses, members of the ANC national executive committee, like national spokesperson Pule Mabe and former minister Bathabile Dlamini, both of whom work at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters.

Mabe railed at the situation, as did Dlamini… gloriously immune to the fact that they are part of the problem and, presumably, could be part of the solution.

There was also a fine piece of irony in the protest because somewhere in the background, echoed the famous words of ANC stalwart Smuts Ngonyama who, when asked about the R160 million he pocketed in a BEE deal, said: “I did not join the struggle to be poor.”

The Luthuli House staff probably didn’t believe that their own organisation would impoverish them.

Perhaps the way to a better life for all of them would be to get other jobs…