Mbalula will get a tub full of mud for Christmas

It’s the festive season again. It’s the time where we navigate potholes on the way to load shedding-proofed shopping centres running on generators.

It’s the time when hard-earned 13th cheques are taxed by nearly half and what you get in return remains as much a mystery as Santa’s ability to deliver millions of gifts in a single night.

Thankfully, President Cyril Ramaphosa shed some light on the missing trillions of taxpayer money. He acknowledged in midyear that it was gone. Then he had the guile to expect us to move on.

The president will not be getting a Christmas card from me. Instead, I want to send him an invoice for Christmas, for the cost of replacement parts, thanks to the potholes that breed faster than rabbits on our roads. He must also refund me the monthly payments to private security because his police force cannot protect me.

Most of all, Ramaphosa should be paying for the therapy of every South African who’ve lost their jobs, livelihoods and the will to stick around after decades of abuse by criminals, bureaucratic incompetence and corruption. Perhaps I will send the president, his Cabinet and state-owned companies each a glove in which to stick the invisible hand of self-interest.

At least that way it wont leave fingerprints next time round.

ALSO READ: ‘It won’t take 30 years to fix Prasa,’ says Mbalula

The department of public enterprises has become an abattoir where limp state-owned companies go to be business rescued. It’s a great racket. It’s another tender. Everyone makes money except the creditors and it eases the embarrassment of immediate liquidation for the state. Employees are just collateral damage.

Blame previous management, foreigners or – if nothing else – blame Covid.

Minister Pravin Gordhan gets a balloon for Christmas. Because at some point the bubble will burst. It’s impossible to sustain credibility in a haze of rhetoric and mysterious ways.

I am sure at some point the unusually prolonged lobola negotiations between Takatso consortium and public enterprises for the South African Airways’ hand will be the pin that bursts the balloon with its prick.

Democratic Alliance federal chair Helen Zille will get a small bite of cupcake from me this year. Roughly about 20% of one. She’ll also get a sock full of marbles. And while Zille doesn’t need a bag of little balls, she might want to share the sock’s contents at a future DA meeting discussing whether it meant what it said about not working with the Economic Freedom Fighters.

Santa will give party leader John Steenhuisen a social media guide with step-by-step details about how to unblock your critics from your Twitter feed.

After looking at Good Party leader Patricia de Lille’s election campaign Twitter feed, she gets a subscription to “rent a crowd” for Christmas, redeemable for all future campaign efforts.

ALSO READ: ‘Mongrel’ and ‘clueless minister’: Mbalula and Niehaus in yet another Twitter feud

Minister of Twitter and, on occasion, Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula – aka Mr Fix – will get a tub full of mud, so he can feel what it’s like to get his hands dirty.

Former health minister Zweli Mkhize will get a compass to help him navigate and sidestep the consequences of the Digital Vibes scandal and later, how to get out of the political wilderness.

Ace Magashule gets a boxed set of the A-Team, sharing a fundamental life lesson – the bad guys always get caught.

Jacob Zuma has already used last year’s Get Out of Jail Free card, so there’s nothing really left to give the man who’s got it all. All of yours, mine and our neighbours. Allegedly, that is.

Zuma’s buddy Carl Niehaus, now exiled by his comrades, will get a snapshot of the future from me for Christmas. And he’s not in the picture