During lockdown, I was shocked to hear that some of our staff were paying up to R1 400 for a carton of cigarettes.
I gave up smoking a decade or so ago, but I wondered if I would have been prepared to pay that for my habit.
Stories have emerged of people making fortunes from selling cigarettes illegally during lockdown and I can believe them.
Curious to learn more about the business, I picked up Tobacco Wars, a book by former Sars official Johan van Loggerenberg.
It turned out to be an intriguing read about the efforts of the taxman to crack down on the illegal trade in cigarettes and the dirty tricks almost everybody in the business – from the established Big Boys to your corner crook – is prepared to do to avoid paying tax and stab each other in the back.
The false stories about a ‘rogue unit’ in Sars, created by crooked officials and fellow travellers, were but a part of the massively corrupt movement led by Zuma, the Guptas and their cronies, to emasculate anybody to achieve the state capture that we are all too familiar with.
Anybody, whether in the police, judicial system or revenue collection, who tried to stop the rot became a target.
Thing is though, much as I am shocked (and I hope you are too) to learn the extent to which our state has been used, abused and corrupted, I am equally astonished at the extent to which the corrupt have their allies.
I know Twitter is not the real world, but there are many, many voices on social media and national radio who say they are prepared to defend these people, right or wrong!
Then there are those who say, ‘Well, what do you expect? This is Africa.’
To them I say, look at America, where 70 something million people voted for Trump even though he has proven to be deranged. People can do weird things!
Which brings me closer to home.
Last week I listened to one of the new kids on the block who says he wants better for our country.
Herman Mashaba, former DA mayor of Jo’burg, leader of the newest political party, ActionSA, has a holiday home in Simbithi.
His KZN fans held a fundraiser golf day there, which Rose got the nod to play in.
She was teamed with his wife, Connie, who she declared a thoroughly admirable person.
Connie now runs the company Black Like Me, which earned Mashaba his millions, while he is stumping the land in preparation for the 2024 national elections.
I dropped in for a drink and a bite afterwards, and most of the people in the room were former or current DA supporters.
People are generally pretty fed up with politicians at the moment, including the Democratic Alliance, which is wandering in the wilderness.
ActionSA’s manifesto is pretty much from the DA hymnbook – non-racialism, better education, better economy etc – so I asked Mashaba, what’s the difference between you and the DA?
His reply was that his party would be truly non-racial, unlike the DA where all the black faces were window-dressing and only there for the money!
That might be a bit harsh, and while he might want to put as much distance between himself and Steenhuisen/Zille as possible, he is going to get hammered on the similarities come 2024.
At the moment the advantage he has is that his new party doesn’t come with all the baggage of the DA, but make no mistake, any chinks in his armour will be exploited to the full in the rough and tumble of a national election.
I’ll say one thing for the DA though, compared with the ANC and EFF, at least they don’t spend their time picking our pockets.
Those other guys steal our money and then have the cheek to lie about it!
At a local level, it’s a pretty sad indictment of our municipal system that Dolphin Coast residents have had to resort to buying tar mix to fix the potholes.
Next thing we’ll have to buy light bulbs.
On a brighter note, it was fantastic to see the police on the beaches at the weekend, stopping people from taking booze onto the beach. I hope they keep it up right through season.
It’s great to see a silver lining now and then, though you have to grope through a lot of cloud to find it.
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