Sorry to say it, but Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s back.
The man loves to run his mouth and make outlandish claims, usually whilst talking in the third person, and he was back on his bullshit yesterday during his “historical” announcement that he was starting a political party.
It will be called African Content Movement, and the slogan is “the future is in your hands”.
Excuse me if I don’t get too excited.
Anyway, the former SABC COO, who almost singlehandedly destroyed the public broadcaster (just the R3 billion bailout request at present), now wants to do the same to the country.
Here’s the Citizen:
Motsoeneng said he had decided to start the party because he saw that politicians were not helping citizens. His party would listen to the citizens and give them exactly what they wanted, he claimed.
Not sure I believe him, but let’s get stuck into some of those truly mind-blowing quotes from yesterday:
- In South Africa, the only person who is tested on delivery is Hlaudi. Not looking the west, the north, the east. I did implement what I was supposed to implement [at the SABC] and I was not looking for favours.
- Today people say Hlaudi is dangerous because they have realised that this Hlaudi is going to take over.
- People don’t understand this English that they talk about. You see, sometimes people talk English but they don’t understand it themselves. They read book [sic] and play with terms, but they don’t understand those words. Maybe they don’t understand irregular. Maybe we need to forgive them, because I have forgiven them because they don’t understand.
At this moment, you realise he’s basically South Africa’s version of Trump. Back to the bollocks:
- Ladies, you have Brazilian hair, why can’t you have South African hair? I know there are people who have long hair in South Africa. For those who have short hair like me, let us grow our hair so that we can cut it and turn it into a product and sell it and have South African hair. Even the Brazilians will love our hair.
Build the wall and grow the hair – got it.
- People have been saying to me ‘Please Hlaudi stand up, we want to vote for you.’ Now I’m available, I’m here, free of charge. Those who don’t have interest to vote, at least you have someone now, a wonderful person who’s going to change the lives of the people.
- In my time at the SABC, there were smiles. People were happy, there was no mathata [problems] because we were paying people living wages.
Here’s a story from Channel24, last year, about the SABC in the aftermath of Hlaudi’s reign:
The SABC owes singers and musicians millions of rands in unpaid royalties and more millions in residuals to actors, with the struggling public broadcaster on the brink of financial collapse, blaming its severe money woes for its failure to pay.
The SABC on Wednesday told parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that the SABC “is behind with royalty payments” and owes artists at least R75.4m…
The SABC, referring to its situation as “dire” and saying it’s “limping from day to day”, told parliament on Wednesday that the “90% local content” decree for local music airplay on radio and “80% local content” on SABC TV ordered by the former chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng has destroyed the public broadcaster and is threatening the very existence of the SABC that doesn’t have the money to pay for it.
So yeah, those living wages weren’t exactly forthcoming. More Hlaudi:
- If you look at our logo, it has ‘that thing’. But the meaning of the hands is that the future is in your hands.
- Now they’re all over, they love everyone. These days they come and greet you. After elections it will be you saying, ‘Hi minister, my chief!’
- In me, I’ll run after you when I’m president and I will use a bicycle to go to the malls and Sandton.
A real man of the people, shopping in Sandton.
OK, that’s nine quotes from the madman, so here’s number 10:
- We have brain.
For real.
A real quote.
We already have some rotten apples in powerful government positions, and the last thing we need is Hlaudi getting a foot in the door.
Then again, stranger things have happened.
