De Beer: Corruption “hostages”, “Chameleon” Steenhuisen on the ANC Smartie Box – and Gayton as CR’s “apple-bearer….”
In this week's episode of the Sunday Show, United Independent Movement (UIM) President Neil de Beer talks about the possibility of the African National Congress (ANC) regaining a majority in 2028 by taking credit for the good work being done in the Government of National Unity (GNU) by ministers, mostly of other parties. However, he also warns the ANC that it risks a "palace revolution" unless it deals with the corruption in its ranks. He referees the latest spat between Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen and President Cyril Ramaphosa who now has Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie jumping to his defence. De Beer talks about the high profile defections of people with "sensitive information" to the MK Party of former President Jacob Zuma, as well as the arrest of his benefactor, the diamond dealer Louis Liebenberg. And he describes the "dismantling" of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) as "the once rising revolutionary replacement of the ANC to something that will just be folding directly into the MK".
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:01.403)
It's 27 October and it is the birthday of BizNews favourite commentator, Neil de Beer. Yet here he is on the Sunday Show. He won't let down his BizNews fans. Welcome Neil and a very happy birthday to you.
Neil De Beer (00:18.72)
Chris, thank you. Happy birthday to me. 56 today, feeling 23. But when you look at the politics of this country, starting to tither to 95. But what a pleasure to be here. What a great time I've had with you. And to every single person who's a fan, people that write in to us on the Sunday BizNews reflection of the week, thank you for the messages and I look forward to another 56.
Chris Steyn (00:49.575)
Well, Neil, I think I speak for everybody who knows you well. We have absolutely no idea how you've survived considering everything you got up to. Much of which will only emerge one day, you know, when the records are unsealed.
Neil De Beer (00:59.532)
Yeah. Yeah, maybe the book. A book, Chris. Everybody's writing books these days, but yeah, it's been a hell of a journey from business to government. My continual battle, I think many people wrote about it with cancer. I am a cancer survivor. It doesn't leave you. It stays there. And the rest of it, I must tell you, I would look back, and say my era in the Struggle, my days in politics, seeing the change of the country, I would not change much because I remain a South African and a patriot at heart. En ek is nou 'n oupa. I'm a granddad. So something more to fight for. Yeah, I'm here.
Chris Steyn (01:51.667)
Okay, to Russia with love. That was President Cyril Ramaphosa at last week's BRICS summit. Now, of course, that was very upsetting to the Democratic Alliance leader, John Steenhuisen. Let's speak about that latest spat in the Government of National Unity.
Neil De Beer (02:11.32)
Yeah, Chris I watched this, obviously being a person that was quite aligned in the past to, you know, many of the countries in the Eastern Bloc, which then increased. I was very much part of seeing BRICS established and took part in several matters, but more on the BRICS bank side in the earlier days. So I look at these initiatives with great interest, knowing the Putin era which has now been seemingly decades, people are now starting to recognize that Vladimir Putin is not a president, but sees himself in actual fact as a Tsar. And when you have that ideology of a person that rises above democracy, but sells it, one always wonders, where do we as a country stand?
Chris, Russia has been the ping pong of the South African political conclave for years; we've had this battle between presidencies since 94 in the Mandela era about are we aligned to the West and then are we aligned to the East. And this poor country sometimes finds itself in the middle and now with a leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, who I tell you takes very few decisions on his own because he isn't a person that leads out of command or a person that takes definitive decisions. He plays the middle-edge sword and sometimes that's where the sharpest blade lies. So we had this appearance of Cyril at the BRICS conference, all of them standing there and starting to talk about something which other criticise and that is this thing called the One World Order. And we always get people that speak about the One World Order, the woke ideology, the singular state ideology.
And what else did the BRICS start to do, except stand on a platform and starting to create a One World order, but based on the previously Eastern bloc countries and even standing up there and starting to say that we will have our internal BRICS money, our own money. And the thing that happened was you had John Steenhuisen, who, if you can remember when Ukraine and Russia started to battle each other, one of the first people in South Africa to attend Ukraine was John Steenhuisen.
Neil De Beer (04:40.598)
I mean, walking through the mud, showing bombs and burst buildings, and definitely aligning the DA, its policy, to Ukraine. And now you've got him serving in a cabinet, and this must be like a chameleon on a bloody Smartie box, because you don't know what colour you've got to show.
Neil De Beer (05:09.73)
But the person who owns the Smartie box is the ANC. And you've got a couple of these bloody chameleons that are now being put on the ANC's Smartie box and they've got to then shine every bloody colour that the ANC decides. How frustrating must this be that you've got your president that sits in Russia who is absolutely adverse to you coming back and saying Russia is our friend, our compatriot and a day later, I think under pressure John has to get up and say, no, hulle is nie my maatjie nie, they are not my friend.
And then, Chris, sorry to tell you, I've got this feeling of this boy that used to stand at the gate waiting for his favourite teacher just to carry the teacher's bag up and down the school and brings that teacher every Friday an apple. That person is Gayten Mackenzie. So Gayten Mackenzie has now become Cyril's apple giver because you cannot even say Cyril got a haircut before Gaytan gets up and says, no, it wasn't. And if it was, it's a beautiful haircut. The person that came to save the grace of poor Cyril, Soekie Cyril was Gayton Mackenzie, who as a cabinet minister gets up and says to John Steenuisen, Los hom uit. Nee, sis, sies. And I thought to myself, does the president of the Republic of South Africa need an apple bearer?
Neil De Beer (06:36.472)
But there you were for the first time in the history that I know a cabinet minister under the same president attacks another cabinet minister and tells that minister to shush, shush, shush, shush. So there we have it again Chris, the old foes, the PA and the DA in one cabinet on a Smartie box trying to defend a helpless president. And I'm just saying that is not a aboding well for the GNU.
Neil De Beer (07:03.128)
It's not going to cause cracks and massive Titanic slaughtering, but just interesting how the children came to play about who is going to bring the president of this country's next bag of peanuts.I think it's pathetic. I think it does not abode well for anybody that says he's an adult or a minister in a cabinet. But anyway, let those continue. Maatjie vir Maatjie and I am the principal's favourite.
Chris Steyn (07:30.887)
Well, meanwhile, former President Jacob Zuma's MK party is benefiting from some high profile defections, but then it was hit last week with the arrest of its benefactor, Louis Liebenberg. What do you say, Neil?
Neil De Beer (07:47.99)
Yeah, so firstly, I've said this on this programme, if you've particularly watched every Sunday, I always go back and say that you must not at this current moment underestimate the strategic alliances within the MK Party.
Now, every single week, every day, I mean, there's the previous Deputy Minister of Police in the ANC, also leaving the ANC this week. High profile. And then secondly, our poor defeated, censored and impeached public protector, Busisiwe, who served as the fourth Public Protector and was actually removed, who now gets up as an EFF Member of Parliament, resigns and four days later, pardon me, declares herself as a member of MK. And the reason she says, is because the MK party is the only revolutionary party in this current moment that will take them back to the economic revolution.
This is a pattern, Chris, that I will go back to and I will tell you every week, look who they're putting into MK. Now, many of the people in this country are writing it off and saying it's a group of imbeciles. Soort soek soort. No, Chris. Irrespective of the people they're putting in MK, and the words impeached and fired, and etc. Look who they are. If you're an ex Public Protector, irrespective of your way of being that Public Protector,you are taking sensitive information that you garnished while being in the seat as Public Protector with you. When you were a Judge President, when you served in the High Court and you actually ran judges and the law, you don't just walk out that building asmHlope and forget everything that you learned. When you are Brian Molefe, when you are other people that served in SOEs, you don't just walk out and forget what the inner workings of government and finance is. I'm warning the people that every week, the cluster of people that are being dragged into MK are increasing of people that might not be ethical, but they were in the inner circle.
Neil De Beer (10:12.558)
And that worries me every single time that we are kind of saying, but MK is nobody, they're a bunch of hooligans, they don't know what they're talking about. Chris, this is dangerous. And I'm monitoring the additions every single day.
And then we have this massive release of a man called Louis Liebenberg, that for probably many people, they did not know who he was. And now he's on the front page and I think he's consuming media on such a scale. Because what we're seeing unfold here, again, is one individual that apparently took four billion, that's right Chris, not million, four billion rand from South Africans of all classes, of all races, and took that money in, and is now being accused, allegedly, to be under a Ponzi or a pyramid scheme.
He used diamonds and diamonds to be the attraction. I always tell you diamonds lasts forever, but at the end of the day, I seem his freedom isn't. My comments about Louis Liebenberg, I know them. I've never dealt with him, but everybody knows there was an interaction in the past with Devon Hofmeyer, who was the part of our situation at once, and he was told to go because of his apparent links with that same Louis Liebenberg. So Louis Liebermanberg, every day on the front news. Quite a charismatic man, but at the end of the day, watch that space, because people are going to get hurt, people are not going to survive the amounts of money that were taken and is now being taken away.
So that court case, I think, is going to go for years. But again, it is worthy to look at because four billion rand from people that mostly could not afford it, people that were under the bread line, is now going to cause, I think, tantamount damage, not just to those people, but to the image of others in this country. So we'll be watching that.
And then he appears to be a benefactor. Guess to who? That's right. Jacob Zuma. So Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Msholozi Zuma was funded by the same Louis Liebenberg. And funny enough, using people's money who are totally opposed to MK. And theyy didn't even know.
Neil De Beer (12:35.84)
So this has now come out that he actually was a sponsor of MK and Jacob Zuma. So much so that when he was appearing in court for the first time last week, he walked in and brazenly said, Viva MK, Viva Msholozi! Wow. The worms are coming out. And what did MK say in reply to Mr. Liebenberg's incarceration? He is a loyal member. And if half MK could be as loyal as that, then they would be in a good position. Is hierdie mense nou mal? I mean, this is a person that allegedly took four billion rand from people that are of the poorest of the poor, of the middle income class. They can't afford it. And they call it loyalty. I think we've got to go back and actually do IQ, EQ, AQ tests, because if that was done, I think they won't survive.
Chris Steyn (13:35.271)
But as you have pointed out, MK cannot be underestimated, The power of MK.
Neil De Beer (13:42.21)
No, they can't. No, they can't. Because at the end of the day, it is not the masses that make a decision on the motive of one class to another. It is the masses, as you know, in this country that are inspired by a person who they take on iconic status. And there is an interesting debate that if Msholozie doesn't make it to 2029, Will MK survive?
Neil De Beer (14:10.348)
Yes, they will. Because at the end of the day, if he dies, he will be the martyr. We saw when the IFP leader, Buthelezi, passed away prior to the national election, that when Honorable Hlabisa took over, on the posters for that, they still used the name Buthelezi. So I don't think we need to go sit on our laurels and say that we hope that a person passes on so that a party can die.
Neil De Beer (14:39.532)
I think that's dangerous because it's a family affair. You can see every single month another Zuma joins and I'm still waiting for the announcement of his son to actually step up and take over with his sister. So it's a family affair and it is a brutal affair when you put a couple of revolutionaries together, you create that kind of enemy on the other side and those people start fighting and that's going to be interesting.
Chris Steyn (15:07.464)
And they're completely decimating the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Neil De Beer (15:12.59)
Chris is falling. I mean, if you saw, may I say, I'm starting to doubt myself because I'm getting a bit of pity for Frikkie Julius Malema. I call him Frikkie. And Julius, this week, tried to defend the leaving of Busisiwe because this was a huge thing and he automatically did what he always does. He said Busisiwe was a spy.
You know there are two things in this country which you are remotely getting a little bit, you know, when you have a lot of kaings. Chris, do you know what's kaings? Kaings is sheep fat that you fry in a pan and you eat it on toast, but you have one of them and you start to get gall right up to here. No, no, Ek, you know, I'm getting galled of kaings in politics because, pardon me, in this country, you are either two things. You're either a racist or you're a spy. You are one of the two. You can't be anything else.
Neil De Beer (16:07.458)
So there goes Julius getting up when Busisiwe decides we're going from red to camouflage and he gets up and he says, but she was a spy. We always knew she was a spy. Now, if she was always known to be a spy, why did you let her become a Member of Parliament?
So I'm saying at the end of the day, the EFF is taking gunshots and is being fired upon like you cannot believe and it looks like Chris, just my opinion, that he as Julius is not doing well. He's not looking good. He's not appearing good. And I think we are seeing slowly but surely the dismantling of the once rising revolutionary replacement of the ANC to something that will just be folding directly into the MK.
Neil De Beer (16:52.824)
And shockingly this week Floyd Shivambo getting up at a press conference and saying, I was the one that structured the EFF, built the EFF and ensured that the EFF becomes the brand it was because he says Julius couldn't fight his way out of a punching bag.
Chris Steyn (17:20.883)
Basically saying I made him and now I will unmake him.
Neil De Beer (17:25.642)
Absolutely. And Chris, there it goes. When they parted so publicly and said that they would not have digs at each other, that they will remain friends. Politics is a very short moment in interceding to becoming an enemy.
Chris Steyn (17:41.309)
Now, Neil, as you know, it's the NEC meeting this weekend and something that seems to have popped up there is the, I don't know whether I should call it a theory or a finding that the ANC's inability to deal with corruption in its ranks is due to its leadership structures being held hostage by them. Now, how would a hostage situation like that work, Neil? Can you explain it to me?
Neil De Beer (18:11.214)
It's very weird. So obviously I've got a person sitting there that I used to be in with. And that person, you know, that it's their NEC meeting at Birchwood again, lovely little setting with a lot of parties, I think, buffets and a lot of carvery being sold. Sidebar meetings and the excuse just to chomp down on coffee and biscuits because I attended some of them. So the news from the underground is there…
Neil De Beer (18:40.084)
You know Mbeki was there, Thabo Mbeki, you know, the thorn in the flesh also attended. Cyril was there. It's a ful NEC. And here pops out this devastating understanding that this word that the ANC has thrown into our gullet, this word renewal, this mantra of the ANC renewal, whom Cyril says effectively started after the Zondo Commission and the appearance of Cyril Ramaphosa at the Zondo Commission, you remember that, and him sitting there and saying, we have to admit that State Capture took place. He admitted it. But he then says the sentence, which was devastating in admittance when he said the ANC remains accused number one. I think you will recall that; he said it and then once you admit that you are accused number one in state looting and state capture and corruption, you've got to now do something about it. And that's when he launched the ANC Renewal Programme and you will notice a hundred days after that there was the devastating attack of Thabo Mbek in a statement where Cyril was sitting in that function, I think Cyril nearly died; I think he had to take several pills to get himself settled. When Thabo Mbeki said that there is nothing that has come from this so-called renewal. Now you can say what do you want about Thabo Mbek, he still remains an elder, he still remains a person that attracts a lot of media and is so critical, no matter his attitude, about his own ANC. And this weekend, there is this understanding that they need to continue drastically with the renewal of the ANC to weed out corruption and to sit down and say, we can no longer do it. And then the statement that says, but we under siege.
Neil De Beer (20:59.98)
And here's the funny thing, Chris, when you take a hostage, you normally take a person into your space against their will and there is a scenario that one or other time you are going to have to trade with this hostage for either freedom or for capital gain. That's why you take a hostage to get something from or of. The ANC has taken themselves hostage by their own people so that they can continue looting the coffers.
Neil De Beer (21:29.184)
Isn't this an absolute crazy situation that the people that can cause change, can cause renewal, are currently saying they cannot because the overwhelming people in the ANC are actually still corrupt and stopping them from change. This is what's come out. And now you've got to sit back and go, but whom? And where? And what? Wies julle?
Neil De Beer (21:56.3)
And the problem, Chris, is they are sitting in the NEC some of them. And what we do know, this is a fact, this is not rubbish, is that some of those members of the NEC are also still indicted, mentioned in the Zondo Commission. And they're sitting there and we know who they are. So I don't buy this absolute nonsense that they don't know who are the hostage takers. They know who they are.
Neil De Beer (22:27.03)
And there comes this debate, is the ANC, is Cyril Ramaphosa willing to get up and grow some rugby balls and say to those who are indicted, who are mentioned, who are ANC accused number one, to get up and say Klaar, jy, jy, en jy, you are going to go to court. And if found guilty, you are going into orange.
That is the critical thing we need from this president, Chris. We need this man to grow some, to get up and to say, I am not going to allow another decade of this ANC with the scoundrels, the hyenas and the looters, no, no, not outside, who sit amongst us. And that is what's civilian, that is what's citizen X, Chris. That's what you and I currently want to see. We don't want to see propaganda, we want to see action. We want to see that even at the NEC meeting, when they finished with their lamb, when they finished with their potato, as hulle uitstap, there should be a couple of trucks waiting and go olka, polka, stolka, jy op die klavier. You, you, you, you, don't go to your black BM, go into the red car. That's what I think we should have, as public as that. Because I fear if that's not done…
Neil De Beer (23:52.91)
If that is not done, then you will have a palace revolution in this country where people are going to say if you don't clean up this ship, we are going to clean up this ship and we are going to clean this ship from the start to the end. And I don't think that's where this country should go. This ship of South Africa should have been cleaned, cleansed a long time ago. And now I'm going to end with one shocking revelation.
Neil De Beer (24:22.118)
What Chris, hear me, and I'm going to leave us there today. What if the GNU, with the sterling work of certain ministers, majority of them not in the ANC, what if the people that backed the ANC past and present stand back and see that the government of this country has become so efficient that Home Affairs and Police and everything is working and there are buildings because of Dean MacPherson and construction sites and they're getting work. Because what happens in 2029 when the people of this country, the mass illiterate, the mass propaganda actually turns around and goes, wow, this government actually has done better. And they tell everybody it was the ANC that did it. And they go back to majority.
Can you imagine if that happens in 2029, that the ANC turns around, takes all of this accolade, tells the people who are their cult followers that you've got more jobs, you've got more construction, you've got more safety and security, you've got better borders, because of the ANC government. I'm telling you, Chris, this is a new-age sword to think about – and don't underestimate the sneakiness of the ANC, one of the oldest liberation movements in the world. A little bit of food for thought on this blessed day.
Chris Steyn (26:05.26)
Well, I'm sure that Helen Zille and John Steenuisen will get together as soon as they've heard what you've just said, Neil, and start with a counter strategy. You'll get a WhatsApp from Helen later. Thank you. That was Neil De Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement, speaking to BizNews on his birthday. I hope you have a wonderful day, Neil, with your family. And I'm Chris Steyn.
Neil De Beer (26:29.102)
Thank you, Chris.
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