Listen here: .Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.196)Welcome to the NdB Sunday Show with Chris Steyn and Lauren Evanthia, the founder of the Organic Humanity Movement. Morning, Lauren. Lauren (00:11.815)Morning Chris. I'm looking forward to discussing what's on the agenda for today. Another exciting week in South Africa. And you know, just a lot of these stories that we're talking about today really relate to the past two weeks, I'd say, that we've discussed. And I really hope we bring a big picture to the South African citizenry that we can't just sit back and be keyboard warriors anymore. We need to take things to the next level. Chris Steyn (00:39.82)That is what President Cyril Ramaposa is trying to do with an urgent court bid to try and stop Parliament from conducting his impeachment inquiry. Lauren (00:51.483)Absolutely, as a state leader who had millions of dollars found at his home, undeclared, obviously there's a huge question mark as to his credibility and what's been going on. And in 2022, luckily, because the ANC was in the majority in Parliament, they could halt an investigation. But then later on, now we have a GNU, the ANC lost a lot of support, and now the Constitutional Court insisted that there is an inquiry into what has happened with the Phala Phala case. And now the president is obviously scrambling. He knows what this means. If anything, this is almost an admission of guilt on his part. Although he is claiming: what it is going to do to his political reputation? I'm sure, what is it gonna do to the elections? How is it gonna hurt the ANC during the elections? I think that is probably at the forefront of his mind. Because if we look at the statistics from 1994, or in the case of local government elections from 1996, we have seen a steady decline. There was a little bit…where parties like the DA and the ANC got extra support, but on the overall trend, it's been a downhill trend. And that is probably very concerning for them. So he's trying to delay things, which will take him to September. And elections are in November. So this is just damage control. I want to share statistics with you. In 1996, ANC had 66.3% of the popular vote. That's a lot. In 2001, 59.4. 2006, we had a spike again, 66.3% of the vote. This is the ANC. And then it's just been a downhill trajectory since then. From 66 to 61.9 to 53.9 to disastrous 45.6 percent ANC support in 2021. 45.6 percent of those who voted. Because parallel to these statistics, the voter turnout is also declining rapidly, which just shows the state of affairs in our country. People have completely lost hope in governance and in the political system as a whole. So if they want to hold on to that 45.6%, they cannot afford to have this massive scandal with the president. Lauren (03:15.49)Is he going to see out his term? That still remains my biggest question. Because on one hand, we have had other presidents who have not completed their term, only Nelson Mandela has. And if he doesn't complete his term, who's going to take his place? How much does it matter who takes his place to the average citizen? I don't think it does matter, because why? As I've brought up a million times before. The president of the state remains the president of the party, and that is a disaster. It cannot be. So there are two paths. If we want to see progress in the country, this impeachment process is just an opportunity to talk about the two paths that we can take. We have the easy path where we say, Okay, once a president takes his oath of office, he has to relinquish all political affiliation, all political positions, any political responsibility, that it becomes a thing of the past. He actually has to say goodbye. He actually has to terminate his party membership and become the state president. And I think that would be a beautiful improvement. But there's the second option, which I advocate far more vehemently, and that is we should be able to elect the president directly. The president shouldn't come from parliament, the president should run on his or her own, separate to the whole parliamentary process. And imagine, Chris, you could run for president, I could run for president, anyone could run for president, subject to applying with IEC very much like a political party does today. And I think it'll be wonderful to see different characters and individuals coming up that aren't tied to a political agenda, standing for public office. And you know there's a lot of details I'm not discussing in this, but I've gone and fleshed through all the red flags that could come from this kind of system and have made provisions for that. So it definitely is a better way of ending up with a state leader. Instead of having someone politically connected, criminally connected almost, leading this nation. And as we discuss later, we'll see how and why that is such a problem. But just to summarise, I was thinking about it combined with the whole March and March…. Lauren (05:38.329)…debacle we're having currently, the corruption we're going to be discussing later. What is it that South Africans need from government? Regardless of whether you're an ANC member, a PA member, an EFF member, a DA member, a Freedom From Plus member, what do you want? You want stability so that you can go about your business and go about your day safely. You want sovereignty, so the government protects the country from outside threat. You want diplomacy. So we have friendly relations with other countries. Not so difficult. And then finally you want prosperity. You want things in place that allow the economy to flourish. Not so hard, is it? But we're not getting that. We're not getting that with the system that we have inherited. And that's very sad. Chris Steyn (06:30.775)Talking about politicians scrambling, I see Neville Delport is continuing on his defection journey from the African National Congress to the Democratic Alliance and now on to the Patriotic Alliance. Lauren (06:43.868)Well, Neville Dalport, he's a provincial ex ANC provincial secretary. So I think that's a rather prominent position. But he was the ex provincial secretary of the opposition party, because in the Western Cape, the DA is in charge. He cited, I think, factionalism mainly as his issues with the ANC. He also didn't see how the ANC could really affect change. So if you're just listening to the words coming out of his mouth according to the public statements he's made, then okay, fine, from a political standpoint, going to the ruling party of a province is where - giving him the benefit of the doubt - is where he can exert influence and make a positive impact. So that's understandable, but looking at the contrary side of that, going to the ruling party instead of another party is also a way of securing your lucrative position. And so he joined the DA; apparently he is really good at mobilising and organising and helping with by-elections. And he obviously has that on-the-ground talent and skill, which is always a sought-after skill in the political arena. But then he cited a whole bunch of problems with the DA not serving all the communities in Cave Town and all the rest. And so he left for the PA, the PA who he criticised just a few months ago when he joined the DA. So I'm not sure what conversations were happening behind the scenes to make him decide what he did. I don't think it really makes a difference. I mean the ANC and the PA are all part of the GNU after all, and they're all trying to hold on to power, that's their main priority. They're not there to serve the people. So does it matter where he ends up? No. If he joined an unrepresented party, I'd be more excited. If he joined a party that isn't part of the GNU, I'd be more fascinated by his decision. He's just going where the opportunity lies, in my opinion, not too different to the Liam Jacobs story that we spoke about last week. Chris Steyn (08:48.247)Meanwhile, what have you made of the testimony of Witness I at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry? Lauren (08:56.625)That was a very interesting one. So obviously he was a witness of something that should not have gone down or something that should not have been made public. A 700 kilogramme, R300 million drug bust. That is a lot. It's one of the biggest drug busts in South African history. So that is very significant. And here's a man that witnessed…because everyone's focusing on the house, everyone's focusing on the assassination attempt, fine. But here is a man that witnessed a complete break in protocol. Was that break in protocol a necessary operation to get to the bottom of an issue? Or was that breaking protocol just more corruption? I don't think we'll ever truly know. So I'd like to hear more from him. I'm sure he has more to say, but I'm sure he's also very scared, considering he was hit over the head with the metal object. This is why people don't speak out. This is why people in politics who know and see the corruption refuse to speak out because they have children, they have wives, and they just can't afford to put their lives on the line. I mean, very few people would risk their lives to bring the truth to the fore. So commendable from that perspective. He claims not to have ever met or communicated with Cat. I tend to believe him actually. But who knows? We'll have to wait for further evidence. But for me, this whole Madlanga Commission….it's like we're looking through a keyhole into this massive room. And the only thing that you can see through that keyhole, that is the Madlanga Commission. There's so much corruption. I don't know, I hate calling it corruption. It's something much deeper than that. I don't even think it's mismanagement of funds. It's deeper than that. I don't think we truly have a name for the siphoning of South Africa's money and resources for nefarious things of which we don't really know. So we are just looking through the keyhole in the door, we don't really know the full picture. The public's only being allowed in on just a little bit so that we feel like the government is doing something. But the extent can't fully be comprehended. The whole South African government for me appears to be an entire criminal enterprise. And if the whole truth had to come out, I'm sure we'd all be shocked. I mean we can come up with hypotheses… Lauren (11:18.831)…and our imaginations can run wild. But if you just look at everything that's happening at every level of government in every department and then these things that are coming out thanks to witnesses that aren't afraid to speak out, it's painting a very grim picture of South Africa. South Africa is like a crime, a running crime. And it's quite a sad situation. And you know, it should move you. When you listen to these things and read these news articles, it should move you to want to take action of some kind. And hopefully hopefully through elections some people will take action, but it needs to go a little bit beyond that..Read more:.The NdB Sunday Show: Lauren Evanthia - Tender tycoons, political treachery & human tragedy….Chris Steyn (11:53.503)On to some service delivery or lack of service delivery horror stories. Joburg residents without water for weeks, a major Emfuleni business park without power for weeks. The Human Rights Council recommending the dissolution of Makana Council because of decades of delivery failures with regards to water and sanitation. Lauren (12:19.325)So many thoughts run through my mind here, because I actually stayed in Makana a few years ago. I think it was 2022…And they were going through this funny watershedding situation where households had water every second day. So in every home there was a bucket and bottles of water and if you were on the day that didn't have water, you'd have to do the bucket system. And it was interesting. I'm glad we weren't staying there permanently. I'm glad we were just visiting. Otherwise, I mean it becomes very impractical, especially if you're a family with kids or elderly parents who need assistance. It becomes a hygienic nightmare. So from a resident perspective, it's absolutely awful. I've been in places where we haven't had water for various reasons for a few days at most, and it's shocking. It's terrible. Cooking, cleaning, washing, it's just impossible. So at some point hygiene completely breaks down, civility can't function. To be an advanced civilisation, you need running water. Even ancient civilizations knew that and had water to varying degrees. And here we are struggling with life's most basic necessity. And not for lack of resources, for lack of governance, or lack of management. I'm I feel very sad for the businesses in Emfuleni, a metro in South Africa, who are losing millions because it is specifically an industrial zone that is affected. And though that industrial equipment cannot run on a little tiny generator, they need actual power. And it's just costing them not just money, but down the line, jobs. People are going to lose jobs. That's going to affect women and children. So for every job that's lost, you're affecting up to five, maybe more people. So one has to really look at the broader impact of what government failure is doing. Government can't even maintain, fix, and build basic infrastructure for our most basic needs. And then with the Joburg residents being without water, that was an interesting one. It was a long time, five weeks. I read a number of articles and the one specifically was reporting on a woman who after complaints of residents falling on deaf ears. Lauren (14:39.983)Eventually… also she said she tried to approach the ward councillor. No luck there. She got no help from the ward councillor whatsoever. Had to take matters into her own hands, and then overnight the water problem was resolved. So what's going on there? Where on the bureaucratic chain of communication are things falling apart to that degree? And to affect complexes, so you’ve got dense populations in a metro being affected by water disruption. It's a disaster on so many levels. And it's probably one of the biggest threats we have to maintaining stability in South Africa. We have a lot. But water's definitely one of them because like I said, civilization can't run without running water. It is key to everything. Chris Steyn (15:25.501)Now compounding the service delivery issues, the Minister of Finance has revealed that the provincial governments owe the municipalities fifteen billion for unpaid rates, water, electricity. Lauren (15:41.484)I feel like we're living in a fiction because for a hospital or a provincial department office or a clinic or something in the provincial landscape of our government, for them to not be able to pay a simple bill. We as individuals are expected to pay our tax, make sure everything's up to date, pay our municipal bills, make sure water rates and electricity are all paid up. If not, then we don't receive services after a while. So if that's expected from the average citizen, if the average citizen, regardless of income, regardless of educational level, is expected to keep up with basic adult responsibilities, how much more can we expect that from actual government offices in our province? So the fact that this is even an issue, just points to a much larger problem of complete, not just ineptitude, but I think a mindset that once you have a position in government, once you are employed. I remember I worked for government for a very short time, local government that is, and I was told how lucky by someone in government, because once you have a government job, you have it for life. You don't get fired. You're there. Cushy job, you go home early. It is definitely nothing like the corporate world at all. And that's just the mindset. You enter a government job, you're comfortable, you know you're gonna have it easy compared to being in the private sector. And I think there's just the mindset of okay, let me just do my meetings, let me just do the bare minimum so I can justify my salary without actually doing the actual work. And that's so frustrating that it's such a huge problem. Is it fifteen billion outstanding coming from provinces and further 8 billion from national, and the 8.5 billion of the 15 billion has been outstanding for over a year. How are municipalities supposed to function? Municipalities are supposed to serve us the people. And because of this lack of payment, that is affecting how they deliver services to us. Never mind all the other reasons for government ineptitude to begin with. So quite a crisis. I don't know how they're going to fix it. Lauren (18:04.411)The Constitution was brought into it. So the Minister of Finance did say they're going to invoke I had it up here, a clause in the Constitution… Basically it's saying provincial intervention in local government when a municipality cannot or does not fulfill an executive obligation in terms of the constitution or legislation, the relevant provincial executive may intervene by taking any appropriate steps to ensure fulfillment of that obligation, including there's a number of steps, but specifically in this case, the Finance Minister is invoking section C, dissolving the municipal council and appointing an administrator until a newly elected municipal council has been declared elected. And I think this is specifically with regards to Makana. And I would like to see if this is going to be tested in more municipalities because municipalities are completely failing the people. We have 263 municipalities if I'm not mistaken, if you include metros, districts and local, all of them. And there's municipal failure all over the country. So I hope that if this goes through, that this becomes an example and that other municipalities can also be taken into account in this way using the Xonstitution that we have. Chris Steyn (19:45.878)Lastly, Nigeria is threatening retaliation over South Africa's handling or mishandling of the big migrant crisis. Lauren (19:55.768)I, from a humanitarian perspective, unpopular opinion, I can't blame them for doing that. What we're seeing with March and March and similar operations, they're also gathering a little bit of a life of their own. It borders on vigilanteism in a sense. And it's people taking the law into their own hands. It is different to people demonstrating against the government. It is different to a protest when people's lives are actually being threatened, where people's shops and businesses are being looted and destroyed, where people are being physically attacked or physically removed, and in some cases even killed. This isn't a protest. This isn't democratic action. It is something completely different and it can still escalate to something the government cannot control. And we cannot let it go in that direction at all. It'd be such a shame in our democracy. So Nigeria said they'll retaliate. How? I think it was the Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs. She said that, you know, South Nigeria was an ally with people fighting the Apartheid Struggle back in the day. Nigeria has been a friend of South Africa for a very long time. South Africa has businesses, South African businesses operate in Nigeria, we have trade deals, bilateral agreements. All of that now is going to be compromised because of this action. And that is sad. Already, according to a news article, an overseas news media outlets, I read that there have been protests outside of South African businesses already, not sanctioned by the government, just the people doing their thing. So they're angry and South Africans are angry that Nigerians are in this country, illegal, illegally that is. So I want to just re go over what I said last week again. South Africa is the largest African economy. It makes complete sense that we will have a slightly higher rate of immigrants in this country than other nations. And our statistics are not that bad. So officially we have three point five percent of immigrants in South Africa. We don't know how many illegal immigrants we have. Say we have the same amount of illegal immigrants. That would take us to seven percent. Lauren (22:21.661)Hypothetically speaking, that is still far less than the amount of immigrants in the USA. They have 15% of their population are immigrants, and far, far less than the UK…UK is nineteen. So 19% of their population. We have officially three point five, probably up to seven percent if you include the illegal immigrants. I think March and March and the auxiliary movements branching off from that are doing far more than just fighting against illegal immigrants. And that is actually dangerous territory. And we mustn't forget our humanity in all of this. Like I've said before, all that energy going towards yhese vigilante actions should rather be directed at the government. The government who should be doing three simple things for this 3.5% immigration statistic to not be a problem. Improve policing, all kinds of policing, especially when it comes to the drug units. Improve border patrol and protecting the borders in general. And then lastly, make sure we have policies, policies in place that improve the economy, not make the economy worse. So if the government just does those three things, we won't even notice that there are immigrants next to us with their shops, Spaza shops and barber shops. It won't even make a difference to us. So our energy and our anger is not being directed at the right channels for the right reasons. And if I was the president of this country, I would phone just Jacinta and I would say, hey, come work for me and let's start a task team dealing with what? Illegal immigrants, and she can head that because she's extremely informed with regards to immigration as a problem. She's extremely passionate and definitely capable of organising and mobilising. So let's rather have her work in official channels with the government, not completely despite governments, so that we can actually solve the problem through institutions, through the system and through legitimate processes. Chris Steyn (24:48.502)Thank you. That was Lauren Evanthia, the Founder of the Organic Humanity Movement on the NfB Sunday Show, with me, Chris Steyn. Bye Lauren. Lauren (25:00.049)Bye Chris..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. 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