President Cyril Ramaphosa has a number of balls up in the air at the moment.
He has to balance damning questions about “Farmgate” against having suspended the public protector the day after she posed some of those questions to him.
In all fairness, she was under parliamentary investigation long before that, but Ramaphosa’s timing couldn’t have been any worse.
Amid all of that, he has had to deal with the blockade by truck drivers on the N3 between Joburg and Durban, which is going to have a snowball effect on the entire country’s supply chain.
Thousands of young people descended on the Union Buildings on Youth Day last week, demanding that he deal with unemployment, the rising cost of living and implement a monthly basic income grant of R1 500.
But the Ramaphosa news hasn’t been all gloomy. The youth would’ve undoubtedly celebrated the news that the president sliced the perks of his cabinet, reducing support staff numbers and revoking security upgrades at their private homes.
The one that had most people nodding in agreement was the fact that our taxes will no longer pay for the travel expenses of former ministers, deputy ministers and their spouses.
Former ministers were allowed to fly business class, anywhere in the country, 48 times a year, while their spouses could do the same 24 times a year.
Considering the financial pressure we are all under at the moment, I think this is money that could be put to much better use.
Ramaphosa still has to keep his eye on the state capture issues. He is due to receive Judge Raymond Zondo’s final report tonight.
This is the much-delayed part five of Zondo’s report and will be focused on his investigations into the SABC, the State Security Agency, Prasa and the Waterkloof Airforce Base landing by the Gupta family’s wedding guests in 2013.
These are all matters in which South Africans have been fully invested over the last decade and the details promise to be juicy.
And it comes as we all celebrate the news of the arrest of two of the Gupta brothers in Dubai, where they are still reportedly behind bars.
Obviously the Guptas have the financial means to retain the very best legal minds to defend and delay their extradition to stand trial in South Africa indefinitely.
The irony is that they will be using our money to do so. It’s a very bitter pill knowing that it’s our money being used to fight having to explain to us how that same money was stolen.