By Zukile Majova
Political Editor
Jacob Zuma, now the leader of uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK), is clearly a believer in the old Zulu saying “intombi ishelwa ngamanga,” meaning “a man must sweet talk a lady with lies in order to win her over”.
The former president of both the country and the ANC has been criss-crossing KwaZulu-Natal, shamelessly spreading lies that he was a great president with a deep affection for the poor.
In large gatherings in urban and rural KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma speaks off-the-cuff to great applause, as he charms unemployed youth and uninformed people.
In a mixture of truths, half -truths and lies, Zuma is winning the hearts of thousands of people. The MK party is now said to have over 300,000 members after being formed just one month ago.
Preying on the public outcry about load shedding, which is costing the economy over R300-billion a year, Zuma said he was booted out of office for ending the rolling blackouts.
“When I was given a chance to run this country for a short period of time, because I did run this country, the first thing I did was to ensure that electricity reaches even the most far-flung villages,” said Zuma.
Msholozi forgets to tell the people that he was in power for what became known as South Africa’s “nine wasted years”.
He claimed the current government leaders tried to sabotage his efforts.
“I said we can’t be told there is no electricity to send to the poor when there is enough electricity to send to the homes of white people,” he said.
“I said send it to the people, which is why we now have it. They thought it would never happen.”
Zuma left power under a cloud of state capture, during which state companies were looted under his watch and over R1-trillion of public funds stolen and misappropriated. He claimed it was his good work that cooked his goose.
“Just before I left office, as you know I was removed while I was still implementing poverty alleviation projects, I found that there were people who were using the electricity generation to enrich themselves and their businesses,” said Zuma.
“Then load shedding started, and I investigated where this load shedding was coming from. Only to realise that it was those who had business interests who were saying we should not use coal, we should use diesel.”
He said he fought to end load shedding but blackouts returned immediately after he left office.
“I now see that one of the reasons I was removed from office was because I ended load shedding. Because immediately after I left, they started with load shedding.”
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has previously said that load shedding worsened because of years of poor maintenance of the country’s aging coal-fired power plants, which resulted in breakdowns.
Pictured above: Jacob Zuma.
Image source: X
