In his weekly Sunday show with BizNews, Neil de Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement (UIM), gives his analysis of a wide range of controversies: the VBS Bank scandal that has spread from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – and by extension MK – to the African National Congress (ANC) Minister of Justice; the “Walking Dead” like Shabir Shaik who was released from prison for being terminally ill 15 years ago; the latest gun battles between the police and wanted suspects; leaked info on the Mpumalanga military training camp – and the discovery of one in the Western Cape; the increasing crackdown on illegal immigrants; the battle of Tshwane’s Democratric Alliance (DA) Mayor to hold on to his job while there is dissent in the ranks of ActionSA and a huge backlash against the party for wanting to oust him; the silence over SA’s “moer toe” SOE’s; and how old political foes – who used so much “vile and poison” against each other before the election – are now cozying up…
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:02.897)
It’s the first Sunday of Spring and it is this Sunday Show with Neil de Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement. Welcome, Neil.
NEIL DE BEER (00:13.068)
Yes, Chris, Good Day, on this Sunday, but might I tell you if you were a beer last night, you were in trouble because I think after that rugby game against the All Blacks, Bokke, Bokke, the country was green, but I think the beers suffered. What a victory. Again, showing what sport can do to take away all the darkness and unite our countries on the Springbok team. Wow. What a great game and look forward to next Saturday, where we hope we unite again as a country again.
Chris Steyn (00:50.739)
From the light to the darkness, Neil, the VBS Bank scandal has jumped parties. I see it’s gone from the Economic Freedom Fighters and by extension, MK, to the ANC and to no person other than the Minister of Justice.
NEIL DE BEER (01:05.888)
I mean Chris, this is the Minister of Justice. So you’ve got to understand Thembi … is the Minister of Justice. That that must be fundamentally a earth-shattering shock that should send cold spells down any person’s spine to just imagine that a minister took an oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution, but goes further and is the person who must implement that – as the Minister of Justice – and is now being told that when she was the Mayor…municipality, allowed that municipality – against contrary to any ministerial or municipal finance act – put money into VBS. And undoubtedly the rumour now is that she got a 529,000 rand kickback to put it into a coffee shop.
And until today, which is now a week and a half later, she cannot produce the loan document. She cannot say how she paid that loan back. And she’s still sitting in her seat. Now, in the ordinary manner in this country, we would go, here we go again. But if she was not the Minister of Justice, then we would say, yes, here we go again. But, Chris, this is crazy that a minister who has a insight into The Hawks, into the judiciary, into investigations, actually currently is now being investigated. So much to the point that I hear last week the President actually asked her to send a report on these accusations.
In a normal country Chris, where I would call it Justice Paradise, as an individual, I would have had the honour to get up and say Mr. President, the mere accusation of this would let me ask that I please stand down until everything on this matter is cleared. But obviously this does not fit into her principle. This does not fit into the storybook line, it seems, of the ANC and of this government of past. And this is a thing that we will have to look at and say the pot-kettle black
NEIL DE BEER (03:33.58)
The people are sitting there and they are supposed to be the judiciary. It’s shocking and we must not let this story go and we must continue making sure that this process is followed no matter what happens.
Chris Steyn (03:48.415)
I’m just wondering, Neil, about another Minister, the Minister of Correctional Services. Do you think he will be a lot stricter with medical parole? Because I’ve just been thinking about how miraculously some terminally ill people have survived. I’m thinking of Shabir Shaik in particular. I think he’s been terminally ill for about 15 years. I mean, he was two years into a 15—year sentence for an allegedly corrupt payment to former President Jacob Zuma when he was too ill to continue with his sentence. President Zuma himself was two months into a 15-month sentence for contempt of court when he was given medical parole. And there the two of them are at MK.
NEIL DE BEER (04:38.88)
I think again, only in South Africa. You know, I call them the Walking Dead. I’m absolutely pro anybody that gets told that you are terminally ill and you give that life a good run for their money. I’m one of them, by the way. So there are times that when you classify yourself or get classified as terminally ill, that you are then going to give it a go.
The problem is that terminally ill is linked to custodianship, custodial, where you have got to go to jail. And the reason Shabir Shaik only served two years of a 15-year sentence is because in 2009, his medical officers said that this man is about to die. Now, if you look back at 2009 and the massive raucous that was brought up about the weapons scandal, the deals that were going on, the bribes that were paid, and may I say, on record, it wasn’t rumoured that Shaik benefited Zuma. It was the judgement. It was clear from that judge, in that judgement, when he found Shabir Shaik guilty, sentenced him to 15 years, that verbatim the words of the judge was that there was a clear, a very clear, untoward relationship between Shabir Shaik and Zuma on the basis of there was definitely corruption, there was definitely criminality. It’s in a judgment. So the fact that Shabir is still walking around now – and we used to laugh about it, that every month we see him on the golf course, we see him quite healthy.
I think Pieter Groenewald, who has absolutely started to light fires in the Department of Correctional Services, I would say that all those kinds of cases where people were given parole, because that falls under the ambient, not just of Justice, but Correctional Services, that in my opinion, they should also be reviewed right now. So if Pieter, except for the work that he’s currently doing to eradicate all the problems, could review those Walking Dead, then maybe we would have a bit more confidence in retrospective justice than just what we are dealing with now. But it is a slap in the face to everybody that these people did not see the end of their justice term because they were so-called ill.
Chris Steyn (07:09.135)
Meanwhile, there’s been another dramatic shootout between police and wanted criminals, this time in the Western Cape New, four dead, four seriously wounded. And it’s been a trend since the election, this tougher stance from the police against criminals. Apparently this was an intelligence -driven operation.
NEIL DE BEER (07:34.072)
Chris, I want to make it very clear. There are many people that sit on Facebook, many people that type in Tippex and say that this is their opinion. Very few people, and I make this very clear, very few people understand what the operational scenario is when you get into a point where there is exchange of gunfire. I’ve been there. There are very few in this country that have, but many in that view have also experienced it. So I want to make it very clear, I’m not speaking from a social media point of view. I have shot and been shot. This is not something that can be dictated from an armchair. Only when you get to the point where you stand at that minute, sometimes a mere second, where you have to make a decision, fight or flight.
Now you can see clearly, more and more people are asking why are people being killed in police exchange-of-fire. Now I make it clear, I don’t think the attitude is that we do not want to see the full circle of justice. One wants someone to pay for the crimes that he or she has committed. But they can, and I make it clear, there can never be a millisecond in this country where we condone, endorse or support the fact that a criminal who makes a clear decision to resist arrest and to fire upon police can be let to be doing such an act. The only response to that is to return fire and protect the life and limb, not only of a police officer, but those whom are around it.
Now in Cape Town, recently in Milnerton, we had a position where people got intelligence that extortionists were going to go out there and they were going to cause bodily harm. They were tracked, they were cornered, and they decided in the middle of a town to open fire. The police shot four, wounded four.
NEIL DE BEER (10:03.97)
The previous week, Khayelitsha, shot again. The previous week, Durban, shot again. I think there’s an attitude shift, if I may say. You can see there’s a clear attitude shift on the control and command of the police and I fully endorse it because I have been there. Jy kannie staan en net skote vat nie. That’s not going to happen. And if we can have that attitude, although it is not palatable, it’s not.
NEIL DE BEER (10:34.542)
But until you have not stood there and found lead whizzing past your head, then at the end of the day, you cannot be 100% right in your opinion. Go stand there, get in the boot, sit in that van and be fired upon. This is not right. So I think we should stop this scenario of complaining and saying that the police are brutal. They’re not brutal. They are just being just. That’s my opinion and there’s many contrary to that.
But I don’t like the people that sit there and have never ever worn that uniform saying that there’s an alterior way to dodge an AK bullet in the middle of the day.
Chris Steyn (00:02.73)
And, Neil, there seems to be a clearer link now between intelligence and police actions, let us just go to the Mpumalanga military training camp. What is the latest?
NEIL DE BEER (11:31.618)
Yeah, there was an old saying, silence only stretches as long as the payment continues. I always say when you stop paying people, they get nasty and then the tongues start to wag and it seems that in that saga, the Mpumalanga camp, it seems that new information is coming out from within.
So the latest alleged info is that the people that were trained, the quickly-exited Libyans were absolutely military orientated, that there were rumours that amongst them there were members of ISIS, and that clearly the instructors that were put there were changed at one stage to upgrade them to people of ex-military personnel.
This comes through a source that spoke this week, and this now bring another scenario to the question. Not the illegal training, not the illegal parameters of how it was from a security to military process, not the failure of PSiRA that could not keep control, and not the fact that the people were currently being abused in that scenario.
It now must be on the centerpiece of The Hawks, and I understand they there, of who, not just of the instructors, the camp owners and the security entity, who allowed that process to allow that now clearly people that were brought here for military process could get here through so many loopholes. And until we don’t know the who, the where, the what, the why and the when, I don’t think we as South Africans could rest and feel at ease.
And there’s another scenario that another camp has been found. People are now leaking that information, and I understand it is in the Western Cape, and that process is now also being followed.
We, as normal South Africans, already facing horrendous crimes in this country, to couple this now with people that are in our visible areas of residence, also now being trained to handle guns and commit terror. It’s unacceptable.
NEIL DE BEER (13:55.48)
But I see we are cracking down and that is at least the light at the end of the tunnel.
Chris Steyn (14:00.927)
Well, it’s not only the police that have taken a tougher stance since the election, Neil. I see there’s an increasing crackdown on illegal immigrants, not only from Home Affairs, but in the metros as well. And to the extent that many are returning to their, almost fleeing to their home countries.
NEIL DE BEER (14:18.422)
Yeah, this is again something that has got nothing to do with race. It’s not xenophobia. It’s not a country. As I said, it’s not an individual. This should be about the law.
Now I get many comments. People comment now on email, now that they got my email to give me some little sets of info and some comments, and I love it. And, Chris, we can post it afterwards [email protected]
I love the comments and the suggestions. And one of them was from a gentleman that said, Neil, you are right. It’s got nothing to do about your race, religion, creed or country. It’s about the passport. And I see more and more the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr. Schreiber, saying that we cannot just look at one aspect, visas. Visas is a fifth of the total circle of ensuring that our borders are protected, that’s point one, in other words, secure the border. And we are doing that and there must be more. The military should get involved and we should put an iron-clad dome around the country’s borders. Secondly, those that are inside illegally should then be expelled, but it doesn’t help that you continue to throw them out and then they just swim the river. So we’ve got to do this all simultaneously. We’ve got to strengthen the border, tighten the grip at every exit and entry point, ensuring that the people that come in are legal, get rid of the people in the country that are illegal, ensure then that we’ve got tighter restrictions on qualification of entry, and number five, eradicate and blacklist any person that is caught in this country that has committed a crime is deported to never enter this country again. I think if we do that, then we at least are starting to take a grip of a matter that we cannot deny was out of control and was causing a major ruption in this country. And that’s it. The law is the law, and we should enforce the law.
Chris Steyn (16:32.691)
Neil, before I talk to you about our SOEs, I quickly want to take you to Tshwane, where the Democratic Alliance Mayor has been fighting the battle of his life. You are a big supporter of his, what can you tell us?
NEIL DE BEER (16:46.136)
Yeah, again, I think people always say to me, why do I speak good of Cilier Brink? Well, I know him. It makes it easier. And the fact that I’m not within the same political fray or mentality means that I’m saying to you that you can see for the past two weeks that Mayor has fought for his life. His escalated social media briefings, his proof of what he’s doing. It seemed that the guy at the end of the day was starting to plead with this country not to remove him because that removal would set everything back that he did. Now there is a massive upswell, you can’t deny it, in support of Cilliers Brink, take the party out and an attack on removing him.
Now the interesting thing is ActionSA, the role players Herman Mashaba, Michael Beaumont and his executive, took the stance to say that we are going to be part of the removal. Chris, what that then caused on X-Twitter, on all of those social media platforms, was a negative regurgitation against ActionSA. I think more than what they expected. I think now, when you see what’s happening, that every post from ActionSA is being met with vile where they are saying, but you are treasonous. We voted for you to keep the ANC out. Da da da da da da da.
So now what’s happening is the Vote of No Confidence was stayed off on Friday. Cillier went to court. That’s the one thing. And secondly, the people, the ANC, the ActionSA, the people, they withdrew that Motion of No Confidence on Friday. It doesn’t mean it’s over.
And then this morning, Chris, we are now learning from inside sources that there’s also not 100% cohesion in ActionSA to do what they were going to do. So, obviously I hope that sanity will prevail because at the end of the day, it’s not about one of these bloody parties. It’s about service delivery to the citizens that stay in Tshwane. And if they can focus on that, which they find very difficult, know, it’s like the most disciplined dog in the world will sit at your knees, but when you take the tennis ball, it goes…
NEIL DE BEER (19:10.018)
So your problem is, it seems that if everything is okay and we’re disciplined and whatever, we just as a political conclave can’t help ourselves when greed and power comes to ourselves. So I pray that that sanity will prevail and there will be a change of heart and that we can continue, not with Cillier per se, but with the effectivity of an individual’s attitude, Chris, to perform and to bring change. And may I say, if that attitude could go and flow into all our public servants’ attitude, we have a better country.
Chris Steyn (19:56.457)
Quite Neil, I’ve been meaning to ask you, your opinion: Where are our SOEs now?
NEIL DE BEER (20:04.108)
Moer toe, I, sorry, I, I, someone said to me, what does that word mean? I said coffee, because you know, in the olden days, we used to take beans, cook the living hell out of it, and that that was left was called moer. So I don’t say to a person, jou moer, I’m actually inviting you to coffee. So, so beautiful Afrikaans word. So, so a person has to say…
NEIL DE BEER (20:27.786)
At one stage, every day, every week, every paper, every news clip was about the total demise of SOEs. And you remember the Honourable Minister Pravin Gordhan, I used to call him Gordyn Gordhan, because he used to hide behind it. Just absolutely batted it. Wasn’t a one day, day-and-night. It seemed that he stretched the test wickets.
When the implosion of SAA happened, when the absolute disruption of DENEL, one of the best armament entities ever created in the world, totally collapsed and got stuffed by Gupta. When we saw Portnet, Hawenet, Spoornet, Rynet, Padnet all crumble and fall, and we actually saw the total demise of what was once the pride and prowess of our country.
Suddenly there were now scenarios of we are selling SAA, we are now going to look and revamp Denel, we are going to try and save the harbours and the ports. They still haven’t been. The total eradication of the ESKOM structure was for once, as you will remember, the biggest irk of this country.
Now Chris, I’m asking myself, am I back in Lala Cuckoo land? It’s as if it’s just disappeared. All the charges, all the looting, all the destruction, all the ghost workers, all the money that was looted, all the problems with these SOEs is now not even discussed. It’s as if we’ve just moved on. Now, my opinion is, the gabillions and gatrillions of your and my money went in there; our savings, our life’s equity went in there…
NEIL DE BEER (22:21.622)
And I’m just amazed that those are State-funded entities, in other words, paid for by the taxpayer, and we are hearing absolutely nothing. And in my opinion, because it’s government-owned, government-funded, and it was so wrecked and ruined, it is as if silence is treason to the people.
NEIL DE BEER (22:50.85)
Now, I don’t want this to go. I want to know what are we going to do with the SOEs, what is the plan, and what is the benefit to me, the taxpayer, to continually fund entities that were so destroyed that we don’t even talk about it anymore. We cannot let that off the radar. We mustn’t forget, as the people, what was done to us, what needs to be done, and how do we correct it.
Chris Steyn (23:20.071)
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa is paying another visit to China and I see Democratic Alliance Minister Dean McPherson is very excited to be on that jaunt.
NEIL DE BEER (23:31.726)
Yeah, they’re going to China. I hope they get a takeaway. I find it amazing how enemies, using so much vile and poison pre-election, can then sit down and probably spend 18 hours on an aircraft winking at each other and sharing a dim sum. And I’m sitting and I’m going, really?
NEIL DE BEER (24:02.198)
And not only that, going over there and looking at your Peking Duck, but now sitting at the same moment and seeing the Honourable Minister of Agriculture, John Deere, John Steenuisen, going and having a meeting with the exact human being whom four months ago he stood with a pile of dockets in public and saying that Paul Mashatile is a criminal. He’s a criminal and he did this and he did that and he did this and then they have tea. They actually sit there and they sit and look at each other in this manner…
What the hell? This is the thing, Chris, that makes me, at any time, as a person that’s not been in politics long, and that understands now the to and throw, this is what amazes me. Is the power in politics of politicians to at one moment want to incarcerate, destroy, and throw the key away and at the next moment you are asking two sugars and a milk. I’m sorry, these are just people that are probably better than me because if I knew who you were, I fought to get justice done. I am never going to relinquish that. I don’t care for what amount of money, I don’t care hoeveel lensiesop jy wil verkoop nie. If you’re a criminal, if I know you are, you must go to jail. And the fact that they can one month say jail and in another month gp milk, I don’t get it. I don’t get it. And well, this is probably politics.
Chris Steyn (26:00.233)
Quite Neil, just when we think we’ve seen it all, South Africa’s politicians have the power to surprise us over and over again. That was Neil de Beer, the President of United Independent Movement, speaking to BizNews after another interesting week in South African politics. And I am Chris Steyn. Thank you, Neil.
NEIL DE BEER (26:19.608)
Thanks Chris.
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