The World Through My Eyes

  Procurement processes raising eyebrows is nothing new in our shores, if you remember correctly former President Jacob Zuma set up a Commission of Inquiry in 2011 in terms of s84(2)(f) of the Constitution to look into, what the government at the time called, "allegations" of fraud, corruption, impropriety or irregularity in the Strategic Defence Procurement Package (SDPP). This Commission, widely known as the Arms Deal Commission or the Seriti Commission, was to look at the processes undertaken in acquiring arms for the SANDF, the rationale behind this and ultimately, if it made any economic sense. We will look at this Commission in detail in another piece, today we shine the spotlight on the newly appointed scandalous Finance Minister.  The National Treasury recently published changes to Preferential Procurement Regulations (PPR), these give State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to have their own Preferential Procurement Policies - no longer subjecting them to doing business with ...

About a week ago, I put up a piece which intended to compare the crime rates between South Africa and Zambia, I figured it was unfair to do so without giving somewhat of a ‘context’ on these two countries so here we are today, looking at relations between the two states. As with all African states with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, Zambia and South Africa share a common history: colonialism. This has influenced and shaped the politics of the country itself as well as how it relates to its counterparts.  The former protectorate of Northern Rhodesia was not exempt from an inevitable name-change, in 1964, Northern Rhodesia, Barotseland and the Kingdom of the Lozi people merged to form one independent sovereign state named Zambia (after the Zambezi River). 16 years later, in 1980, the country hosted the formation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), which later reformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a Regional Economic ...

I spend about 20% of my day scrolling through Twitter. Actually, the truth has been altered here, it's way more than that, I'm just too ashamed to admit it. Naturally, I'll come across a new character or two in a day and the beauty of social media is that in 30 seconds, you would've already known what they do for a living, where they work, if they are homophobes or they occasionally want to choke their helper for frying 2 eggs and even, not too surprisingly since we attach our worth to our wealth, how much they take home. It's insane. Actually, scary is more fitting. I'm rambling, this post is not about people oversharing if they enjoy hiking up the Table Mountain during weekends or if they spend the very little time they have here on earth gulping down a bottle of Hunter's Dry while loudly singing along to Adiwele all the while ducking and diving gunshots. The latter is actually quite relevant here since we're talking about crime, specifically looking a...

Just this evening, I read somewhere that a Member of the Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe was just denied his 8th bail application although there’s proof that he is not a flight risk and that November marks his 4th month in prison with no trial nor ‘real’ charges. A claim was made by the Original Poster that this is some form of a weaponisation of law against opposition MPs, all of this taking place just as General Elections are nearing. It seems to be the culture really, nothing new in the continent.   None of us are to be surprised really because, let me shock you, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Zimbabwe, of course his name shall not be mentioned for fear of contravening the POPI Act, wrote a Twitter thread which can be quoted as saying “politics always takes precedence over the law”. Just this line alone made me have a deeper appreciation for our somewhat shaky but very sensible Constitution.  Can you believe that? Politics taking precedence over the law...