Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordon has admitted that he was the minister De Ruyter confided in about corruption and maladministration at Eskom, but insists that he had no obligation to act on ‘allusions’. The revelation comes after a few hectic days of reveals, outrage and denials.

For now, Gordon seems to be sticking to the ‘it’s not my responsibility’ theme as made popular by Ramaphosa earlier this week when he noted that the government had no legal responsibility to provide electricity to the nation.

Ok, so perhaps there is no law that specifically says ‘thou shalt keep the lights on’, but good lord man, you are the President of the Republic of South Africa, and as such you and your cabinet surely have some ‘legal responsibility’ to keep people from dying because they can’t get life-saving operations in the dark. Or to keep kids from dying in pit latrines for that matter. Thought everyone had forgotten about that ‘inconvenient tragedy’ did you? Government obviously have, as the only people who remember the names of those dead children are their grieving parents.

But back to Pravin and his zero responsibility to act on ‘allusions’ of corruption.

According to Timeslive, Minister Gordon on Monday confirmed that although De Ruyter made allusions to the treason being carried out at Eskom, he “can’t just arbitrarily point to someone and say that person is involved in whatever the suggestion is.” True, that’s why we have investigators. Perhaps the Minister should have pointed at one of them and said “You, check it out.” Oh well.

Gordon reiterated that he could not rely on “rumour, suspicion or even what a certain publication calls intelligence. There’s a distinction between that and evidence.”

Yes, genius, but evidence comes from investigating suspicions, rumours and intelligence. One would swear that the ministerial Netflix account never streams procedural cop shows. This is first season CSI stuff, man.

If Gordon acknowledged that he was in fact the minister being talked about during De Ruyter’s interview, could he perhaps also shed some light on the following revelation by De Ruyter:

“I expressed my concern to a senior government minister about attempts, in my view, to water down governance around the $8.5bn that, by and large to Eskom’s intervention, we got at COP26, and the response was that you must be pragmatic. In order to pursue the greater good, you have to enable some people to eat a little bit.”

What exactly is the greater good when it comes to the effects of load shedding? More unemployment and poverty? More death and destruction for an increasingly vulnerable and gatvol populace? Or perhaps the greater good is some new government SUV with heated seats to warm a VIP’s fat ass? You know, because of all the eating.

All this ducking and diving, and play-on-words, responsibilities and legalities is giving us all a headache. Our Minister of Allusions was however right about one thing, if he indeed was the minister in question:

‘I guess it was inevitable that it would come out anyway’.

Secrets are starting to tumble out of the closet like my younger brother did during last year’s Pride Day. It’s anyone’s guess what fresh hell will be revealed in the coming weeks and months. But to all those people in power that seem completely ignorant of their responsibilities, just know that there are 59 million people in this country who are getting fed up with your shit, and they will be watching.

They will be watching you like a hungry vulture.

[source:timeslive]