Columns

Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: The NHI is almost certain to be dead on arrival

| Jan 2025
Daily Maverick
Yet, when it comes to health, you seem intent on marching in the opposite direction. You propose nationalising healthcare services, dismantling a multibillion-rand medical aid industry, and effectively hobbling private-sector health providers.

Opinion | Dead on arrival

| Jan 2025
The Witness
Peeling back this onion reveals the glorious chaos of government-owned funds. The same folks who can’t manage a piggy bank want to launch a new NHI fund.

Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: Private healthcare probably saved my life — don’t kill it

| Jan 2025
Daily Maverick
My leader, I write these hospital chronicles to highlight the sheer scale of resources and speed required to deal with diseases efficiently and effectively. If you destroy medical aid, you will ruin the only functioning part of our healthcare system.

Opinion | Offline government

| Dec 2024
The Witness
My leader, I write to discuss the South African Police Service (SAPS) and its “concomitant” failures. The real issue is design-induced failure. For over five years, we endured a jester as Police minister, more interested in watching himself on TV than modernising SAPS’s archaic systems.

Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu — precious little ‘festive season’ cheer from your offline government

| Dec 2024
Daily Maverick
My leader, I wanted to talk to you about the South African Police Service and its “concomitant” failures, not due to incompetence (of course, some officers are incompetent; that’s life). Still, the glaring failure I am talking about is the design-induced failure. Of course, for five years or more, we had a jester for a police minister who enjoyed watching himself on TV but did nothing to upgrade the police service’s archaic systems from victim statement taking, case number generation, detective allocation and actual court ready dockets aided and abetted by technology. Everything is paper-based, and we are in 2024, nogal.

War against women, children

| Dec 2024
The Witness
"The findings, my labour of love, reveal the shocking pervasiveness of violence against women and children. Each statistic represents lives shattered, often aided and abetted by your inertia."

Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: There’s a war against women and children

| Dec 2024
Daily Maverick
‘I announce the passing of your mythical daughter, Tintswalo’

Truth will out

| Dec 2024
The Witness
Please, my leader, explain how 100 days turned into 1 030 days without a word or a compact. Or is that question too tricky? Let me simplify: What exactly has your economic policy been since taking over from uBaba on February 15, 2018?

Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu — what on Earth happened to the social compact?

| Dec 2024
Daily Maverick
In case someone accuses me of embellishing, you told Parliament (House of Nothingness): “We have given ourselves 100 days to finalise a comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger.” Please, my leader, explain to me slowly, like someone speaking to a five-year-old child whose toys were bought with money deposited via ATMs, how 100 days morphed into 1,030 days without a word of the social compact? Okay, that may be a tricky question.

Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu – my leader, you aim for the stars but don’t reach the treetops

| Nov 2024
Daily Maverick
Since 16 February 2018, for a staggering 2,113 days — in maths literacy terms, an exact five years, nine months, and 13 days — you’ve revelled in the trappings of high office, but the masses of our people have nothing to show for it.