In his latest Sunday Show with BizNews, United Independent Movement President Neil de Beer gives his take on the political dramas of the past week: Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen’s failed blackmail attempt of President Cyril Ramaphosa over the signing of the BELA Bill, and having to get rid of his Chief of Staff; Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s public collapse, possibly because of food poisoning, and many ANC supporters clamouring for Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi to take his place; the torrents of opposing sentiment unleashed by the death of former Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and his controversial legacy. He also speaks about how Economic Freedom Fighters CIC Julius Malema is being politically slaughtered by former President Jacob Zuma’s MKP. And before he weighs in on the latest Presidential debate in the US, De Beer names the Flop of the Week and the Hero of the Week.
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:02.876)
It hasn’t been a great week for many of South Africa’s top politicians. We hear all about it on the Sunday Show from Neil de Beer, the President of United Independent Movement. Welcome, Neil.
NEIL DE BEER (00:16.273)
Yeah, very good morning. What a hell of a week in this country. People signing, people getting fired, people collapsing. I mean, it is just a gift that doesn’t stop giving.
Chris Steyn (00:28.308)
Shall we start with the Leader of the Democratic Alliance? John Steenhuisen, the current leader of the Democratic Alliance.
Well, yeah, too bad.
NEIL DE BEER (00:39.762)
Yo!
Because what can we say? Yeah.
Chris Steyn (00:42.792)
Moments, well bigger than moments.
NEIL DE BEER (00:47.067)
Yeah, if I was John on that day, which was Thursday the 12th, I would have gotten dressed, got my WhatsApps and then just get back into bed. I mean, can you imagine you wake up and you are told two critical things? One, we are going to sign the BELA Bill and no matter what you say, no matter your threats, we are just going to ensure that it’s done. And then at the same time, he has to ask his newly appointed Chief of Staff, Mr. Cabanac to step down because of controversy. What a hell of a day for John Steenhuisen.
Chris Steyn (01:23.69)
Well, asking his Chief of Staff to step down took him a long time, didn’t it?
NEIL DE BEER (01:32.145)
Yeah, Chris, I will say that I know John. I have worked with John, as you know, at the Multi-Party Charter. I have a great affinity to him as a human being. I am frequently, when I was with him, impressed with his style of business, his leadership. But I think in this matter that he got it wrong and that the pressure did not just come from outside, but most definitely from within. And I think getting a double whammy on an appointment by him, which was Cabanac, which was controversial. And secondly, on Friday the 13th, now also being told in the DA that Mr. Ronaldo Gouws is also now removed from the DA. It’s a double whammy, both based on racial conceptualisation, both let go because of the pressure of people just wanting to have a very clear understanding where the DA stands on its racial programme – and in the past it’s not stood up that well. So if we say that they took the steps to remove both, kudos to them.
But the other problem I’ve got is that continually people from the DA, and it’s not bash-DA-Sunday, it’s just reality, it’s in the news, we comment. When I asked someone inside, they said to me that they always used to tell people that they have a absolute detailed selection process before you can even attempt to become a leadership within the DA, at whatever level. It seems that on both of these, Mr. Gouws and Cabanac, that there was a failure and that they have now owned up to to rectify it, but I think some damage done Chris.
Chris Steyn (03:17.834)
But what was he thinking trying to blackmail President Cyril Ramaphosa into not signing the BELA Bill by threatening to walk out of a GNU?
NEIL DE BEER (03:28.337)
Well, I think let’s talk about that. I think there are two things I’d like to talk about that happened this week. This story about you and me picking a fight at school and then at first break, I tell you, get me at the tennis court. Now we get to the tennis court, but by then you and I have kind of calmed down. But your friends and my friends want us to moer each other. Now we are looking at each other, kind of saying, no, we are okay. But because of pressure, we now have to slap each other.
So now this is the same story that’s happening in the GNU and it’s not going to bode well for us who are, can I call it, in the middle that want to have peace, that want to just get on with it. So here’s a classic. As soon as the DA and its partners, because remember the DA can no longer say it’s them, they cannot say the ANC government. They are the government.
Now there are two things that happened which I find on the GNU absolutely pathetic. Number one, every time you’re not going to get your way, you’re going to threaten to walk out. Now I was told by a very astute soldier one day, when you pull a gun, fire. You never threaten a person with a gun. You either tell the person you are going to shoot him if he doesn’t stop and then shoot him. When you take your gun out, do it.
So this perpetual threat of if we don’t get what we want, we are going to walk out. This is becoming pathetic. So now we’ve got the BELA Bill, which we will address today, NHI coming up. I hope the understanding of Land Without Compensation. All those things which the pre- GNU party and new parties brought to the table to say that we’re going to save South Africa, we are going to remove the ANC, we will stand. Helen Zille says verbatim at one stage that the BELA Bill is a non-negotiable.
Chris Steyn (05:31.634)
A red line. A red line.
Well, he signed it. It’s a red line. Well, they’ve passed it now. Now, what are you going to do? Move the red line. As jy weer daaroor trap. Move the line. So, so number one, the GNU is based on a Government of National Unity. They put so much pressure on on on the DA, and then they get told, but if you sign it, we might take other options.
NEIL DE BEER (05:55.057)
What other options? So they didn’t. They just let it get signed. The so-called Minister of Basic Education, the DA minister, decides that to absolutely protest against the signing, she’s not at the signing.
So one, the GNU must get its act together that it does not continue spilling to the public that ons gaan jour moer as jy dit doen and then you don’t. Number two, this continuous pathetic showmanship of a Fikile Ek doen absoluut vere Mbalula who now comes up on Friday and makes a statement that we don’t need the DA and if they don’t want to come with ANC policy we have other people…did you hear we have other people that will join us now. That is like tantamounting a man coming home every day and your wife tells you that if you don’t want to do X, Y and Z, I’m going to divorce you and by the way, I have someone better than you. Wow! This is utter rubbish. This is not being adult. This is not being pro -citizen. This is actually ANC, DA, PA, IFP and the other gentlemen that join.
NEIL DE BEER (07:22.837)
Well, Action SA is standing there and still throwing the verbal stone, but all the parties, the Freedom Front, so DA, Freedom Front, IFP that have actually joined the GNU, they are government, Chris. Now, are we as the people who are now settling into the OROS that we were given, that this must happen, it’s better to be us than the MK and EFF? It is better to go this route, so we have now accepted it.
But really, to have both parties continually sit there and attack each other and threatening to dissolve the GNU does not bode well for us. And I hope that they settle. I hope that they now become the people that we appointed to have and that is to lead, not to actually sit there and pick high school fights.
Chris Steyn (08:18.07)
In another dramatic development, Vice President Paul Mashatile collapsed publicly. What have you heard Neil, apparently he’s fine, but was it food poisoning, dehydration, exhaustion?
NEIL DE BEER (08:30.897)
Well, there’s eight stories. Two of them are carrying the news. One, was heat stroke and the other one was he had food poisoning. Now, no matter what it is, it is concerning when a deputy president of a country publicly collapses. And when you look at that, I fear that every time we go look for the Nkandla story, no, it was a fire pool. No, it isn’t. It was a swimming pool. You absolutely spoke rubbish.
So I think politicians media and public would vote well by just telling the one thing which seems to be continually absent, the truth. Tell us. If it was this, then we accept it, if it was that. But don’t tell us it was this, that and that. And then spin the story afterwards that he’s very well. It is not boding well. He is the second citizen of this country and it is concerning.
Chris Steyn (09:24.532)
Yeah, there’s speculation on some ANC WhatsApp groups about his health. And many people on those groups are very keen for his spot to be taken by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi. Have you seen it?
NEIL DE BEER (09:43.261)
Yeah, I think a lot of people were praying for his health and a lot of people were praying for his ill health. This is politics, you know. When this gazelle gets hurt and it plummets to the earth, there are so many things that come out of the bush that would like to have a nip at the carcass. So make sure that politics is not a very, very clear game. It’s a dirty game. And no doubt, people that are eyeing for the 2027 conference are looking at everybody’s state of health, everybody’s current position because … that is just our life. So yeah, I agree with you. Some people were not saying prayers of health.
Chris Steyn (10:27.714)
Just as some people were not sad that former Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan passed on. In fact, it unleashed a torrent of hatred from certain quarters. But now former President Jacob Zuma has come out to say that it was Gordhan who gave him money to go into exile. So I think some people will be silenced by that. Why do you think, Neil? How would you encapsulate Gordhan’s legacy?
NEIL DE BEER (11:02.001)
Well, I knew him and I met him on several stages of his life when he was with SARS and then when he was the Minister of Finance and ultimately I had a meeting with him when he became the Minister in charge of SOEs. So I do know him. I do say that my grandmother said to me, no matter one’s opinion of another’s life, always respect the dead. So I think first we must say, rest in peace, Pravin Gordhhan.
There are absolutely counter-statements on the life of Pravin Gordhan. But one thing we do have to know is that he, in his lifetime, was one of the hugest and largest catalysts against the Zuma presidency, that he was one of the most vehement fighters to remove the Zuma era in that time of State Capture and looting. So that’s the one thing, one cannot wish that away.
The other side is that under him, no doubt, our SOEs vehemently and absolutely collapsed. So I think from the angle where you come from the angle and your agenda, you would judge him at the end of the day through your view. From my view, we cannot deny who he was and that he would be remembered for many things indeed, but that he was a character in one of the largest times of destiny of this country that we cannot own.
Chris Steyn (12:36.394)
Still on former president Jacob Zuma, I see his son Duduzane Zuma seems to be back in the fold, probably brought there by Floyd Shivambo, greeted him very warmly at Nklanda recently. Well, that, I think, would be cause for concern for Economic Freedom Fighters Commander in Chief Julius Malema if Duduzane focuses on the universities where the EFF has such a stronghold. What do you think?
NEIL DE BEER (13:07.047)
Well, I think the only thing that that guy who calls himself Commander-in-Chief commands is a toaster or a kettle, the browning of a bread and the quality of heating up water. He’s become irrelevant. There’s no doubt. Julius Malema has become irrelevant and he knows it. He’s trying to remaster himself, but he has been totally slaughtered politically by MK and now one by one people are leaving and driving off from him, so he will soon be what? Commander-of-One Chief.
What is clear and shocking is that more and more, Chris, we see MK becoming a one family affair. The latest visit and speech of Jacob Zuma this weekend at the memorial service of those MK members that died in the terrible car crash. He was there. He is suddenly taking stage.
NEIL DE BEER (14:13.081)
Now, this is a man, in March, who started his own party, Duduzane, who said that he is not going to join his dad’s party and that he would like to chip away on his life on his own. That did not work. He was removed from the political IEC list. He did not contest. And suddenly, I think that the attraction, the formation of greed, the publicity is getting to him. And I am telling you today do not be surprised for an announcement in the very next few weeks that he will be replacing another Member of Parliament and will be taking up that seat. I think it’s coming and we need to look at that very clearly.
Chris Steyn (14:58.718)
Neil, earlier you told me that you’d like us to introduce a Hero of the Week and a Flop of the Week without telling me who you have picked. Shall we start with a Flop of the Week then?
NEIL DE BEER (15:12.523)
Absolutely, Cyril Ramaphosa. What an absolute flop this week to come in and forcibly sign the BELA Bill. Now everybody is wondering why is there such an uprise against the BELA Bill. There are definitely people that are pushing it through and at that circus of the signing ceremony, the one that was more happy than the President was Lesufi because the Lesufi was one of the scribes of the BELA Bill. Now when they signed it, they knew that most of the people in the GNU are against it and in actual fact, as you said, was the so-called red line for certain people when they joined the GNU. That red line has now gone green.
And to add a pathetic caveat, the president says, but no, no, I’ll sign the bill. And then there are two points within the bill that I am still open to discuss it with you. That’s like going deer hunting, shooting the deer and saying, just before I chop his head off to put onto my wall, is there anybody that would like to say something in the Prayer of the Fallen Deer? This is rubbish. You’ve shot it. So plain and simple, he goes and signs this thing. I don’t even know if he understands it, but the massive impact that the BELA Bill has on three things, just three things. This is critical. One, the right and the custodianship of the people that are the school governing bodies, which are mostly parents, are absolutely impeached. Secondly, the right to understand that your language of choice in your mother tongue is now under threat. And thirdly, we have to understand that the right to school your child, I’m just hyper phrasing here, there are many other points, of actually homeschooling will also now be put under state governance. Now, plain and simple, Chris, the right of the education of my children, I’m a dad and a granddad, should at the end of the day, ultimately rest with me.
NEIL DE BEER (17:34.971)
The choice, the understanding and the selection of educational levels of my children should be my right as a parent. The BELA Bill, no matter how you try and frame it, is against it. And that is why there was an uproar from civil society. So signing this bill, knowing that your GNU partners are against it, and they are, it’s not like they’re running away. In my opinion, they just surrendered. They just said to themselves, well, here we go again, no matter what we say, the ANC is going to get what they want. And that is not a GNU. That is an absurd strategy of just going on with the old and the new, just going for the ride. So yes, here’s the flop. It’s an absolute flop.
Chris Steyn (18:25.938)
And who’s your Hero of the Week, Neil?
NEIL DE BEER (18:29.341)
Ooh, Chris, we met Mteto Nyati. Now people will go, hmm, if you don’t know who Mteto Nyati is, he is the current Chairman of the board of Eskom. And I think today, Chris, we’ve just gone over 170 days without load-shedding. So this week at the BizNews Investment Conference, where you and I attended in glory we meet Mteto Nyati. Now this man was kind of, I think for a lot of people, in the shadows. You don’t speak much of Mteto Nyati. But the revelation in person that this man gave about the changes that he and the board, and a very humble man, takes no credit, doesn’t want to be in the media, but sat there for an hour telling us why there is now success at Eskom.
This man, by the way, has a legacy that speaks for itself. He worked for Bill Venter’s group, Altron, and he changed that company in two years. He was, and that’s where I met him, the leader of Microsoft in South Africa. So when I was busy at the African Union building up a system for the economic change of the continent, we dealt with Mteto Nyati as support system to our IT. And to see him now sit there, not taking one singular credit./
But Chris, there’s two things that absolutely blew me away. One a bit controversial and the other one, a very clear statement. He said, number one, what changed Eskom was the change of leadership taking responsibility. Leadership. And leadership at every level at ESKOM had to be changed. So he said what changed ESKOM was not just looking at the power generation system, the power plants and having to upgrade and maintain it, but to put in the right leaders.
NEIL DE BEER (20:55.961)
But then he said something, Chris. When I heard it, I looked at you and you snapped. When he was asked about André, he did not say much, but there was one thing he did say, that if André de Ruyter had to reapply for the CEOship of Eskom, that in no way André would make the cut. That was very interesting to me. And when he was pulsed to say more, he said, rather not. So very interesting.
But the fact that this man has taken on a job which he did not have to, and by the way, he told us that he did not want to take, when he got the call from the president on the way there, he was thinking about five or six excuses to say, no, thank you. But this man decided that it is in his character, I think, Chris, to take something which is broken and the challenge to fix it. Well, currently touchwood he has done so and the great news that in the near future we will have an oversupply of power is even greater – and then he was asked if we now get the supply right what’s next and he said well, obviously once we’ve got supply we then have to look at the cost of energy and we have to make it cheaper So definitely in my opinion Mteto Nyati you are the Star of the Week.
Chris Steyn (22:32.734)
Lastly, Neil, let’s go broad briefly to the presidential debate there.
NEIL DE BEER (22:39.779)
Yeah, I sat through it and may I say it’s not the old Donald Trump. You know, the old Donald Trump that was renowned for being sharp, being witty, yes, at times being insulting, but commanding the stage. When I saw him in that debate with Kamala, I looked at it and I went, ooh, that’s not good.
And then when you look at Madame Harris and you see her verbarge, her reply and the biggest faux pas someone can make when she made a statement to say that she can declare that today in no foreign entity, are there any American soldiers that are currently partaking in combat and the TikTok of that coming out where they are 25 soldiers in a combat arena, looking at her statement and going, now what the hell are we doing here then? That was an embarrassment of note.
So when I looked at this, I said to myself, the United States is in trouble. No doubt. Now, if you are a Trump fan, that’s one. If you are a Kamala Harris fan, that’s the other. But let me quickly tell you if these are the two, and they are the two that will be taking part to lead, argumentatively, the most powerful nation in the world in November, America has got a problem. And they are deep, deep into a huge quantum fight about a great leader. So yeah, I was not impressed whatsoever.
Chris Steyn (24:29.3)
Thank you. was Neil De Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement on the Sunday Show with BizNews and I am Chris Steyn. Thank you, Neil.
NEIL DE BEER (24:39.761)
Thank you, Chris.
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