Listen here.In this interview with Chris Steyn, Political Commentator Solly Moeng gives his take on the latest developments in the impeachment drama surrounding President Cyril Ramaphosa, noting: “... he is buying time for himself, definitely for other people around him whose interests would not be aided by him leaving now and a certain Paul Mashatile is immediately coming in…” Moeng calls for the recall of Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen and the removal of his Chief of Staff Jana le Roux who allegedly swore at an agri official and for sharing bemusement at farmers reaching out to the department. “...if he can’t remove her, maybe they should remove him…look it's up to the DA now to prove itself, to say to Ramaphosa, look, we are withdrawing this man…” Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the June 16 1976 youth march in Soweto, Moeng slams the government for failing the youth. Describing his return last year to Diepkloof - where he grew up, he charges: “It's worse than during Apartheid.The primary school that I used to go to has got a squatter camp inside its yard…It actually made me go on to cry…..” Lastly, he comments on the Western Cape’s outgoing Police Commissioner coming out in support of extending policing powers to the province..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.314)Today is June 16, fifty years since the Soweto youth marched against Bantu education. With me is Solly Moeng, political commentator, who is going to talk to us about the legacy of that day. Solly, welcome.Solly Moeng (00:19.181)So happy to be here. I mean despite the history of this day but this is where we are.Chris Steyn (00:26.52)Solly before we talk about June 16, let us talk about the impeachment drama surrounding President Cyril Ramaphosa. ATM and the EFF are set to oppose his urgent court bid to halt the parliamentary impeachment inquiry.Solly Moeng (00:44.178)Yeah, of course. Look, the EFF is the one that took him to court, that took this whole process to court in the first place. The Constitutional Court has has ruled on the matter that kicked the ball back to Parliament to say…what happened in 2022 was not right, you know, you have to have a proper process within that will lead to an impeachment committee. That's it's now in place and and let's see what happens.I think Ramaposa is…remember when these things first came out, he wanted to resign. At least there were rumours that he wanted to resign. And then suddenly he changed his decision on that. It was also rumoured at the time that there are people around him whose interests would be jeopardised by him leaving. So they said, No, you're not going, you're going to fight everything. So he changed his... I suspect now that he has other people around him who are saying, No, dude, you're not giving up on this too easily. We're going to fight this thing until the end. And I think this is where it's at now. … first of all he said, Okay, let's have this thing reviewed, which is going to be heard in September…and then maybe he probably didn't think the impeachment committee set up would go ahead. When they put it up, he said, Okay, well, I'm going to interdict this thing, which is going to be heard in July. Let's see what happens. And these parties are saying, No, you can't do that. Anyway, you do whatever you want. The law allows you to do that. But it doesn't stop the process from going ahead. And this is where we are at.Chris Steyn (02:13.986)Yeah, he doesn't seem set to resign, Solly.Solly Moeng (02:18.179)No, no. Look, it's just buying time really, kicking the ball further down the road. Ramaposa is not going to be president of the ANC following its next elective conference in 2027. But he is buying time for himself, definitely for other people around him whose interests would not be aided by him leaving now and a certain Paul Mashatile is immediately coming in because that's the only other alternative. I don't see anybody else coming in if Ramaposa were to leave tomorrow. So I think he's going to buy time to go as far as he can. But he's really chasing many ghosts here. … obviously public confidence in the government, in the ANC led government is very, very, very low if any exists at all. And in Ramaposa as well, who came in as a last hope for South Africa. But you've you've seen him over the years, you know, taking time to make decisions, not making decisions, protecting you know, his comrades, were wrong. I mean, we cannot, we've spoken about this before. There are still people in the system in parliament representing the ANC who should not be there at all. So he really just acts when he thinks he’ll just temper them the anger of the South African or when they're looking the other way he keeps doing things the way he wants or his party wants him to do them. So I think there's no confidence in Ramaphosa, in the ANC. South Africans want change but technically, legally they will hold on until the very last moment.Chris Steyn (03:49.582)Solly, meanwhile, the optics surrounding the former leader of the Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen, are worsening by the day. The beleaguered Minister of Agriculture, who is constantly under fire for his poor performance there, his very powerful chief of staff, Jana le Roux, has shown utter contempt for struggling farmers asking for help.Solly Moeng (04:18.929)Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. I think it's absolutely crazy that in South Africa we live in a country where there are no consequences. You know, in some of the things that people do here that they get away with they wouldn't get away with the same things in other countries. And this lady would have been forced to resign. She would have been told, Look, given what's what's happening and given the pain that these farmers, fears that they're facing with this Foot-and-Mouth Disease and This is a serious thing. This is an existential threat to many of these people. And for her to privately be sending messages ,,, worded as they they have been announced to be to be worded, and for her to be saying what she said as well, thinking that nobody… the microphones are far are far away or whatever she's saying is not going to end up… it's just in poor taste and she shouldn't be so indispensable that John holds on to her. I mean John Steenhuisen was in trouble already, even before this Le Loux lady said it with her antics. The the farmers wanted to take charge of the vaccination because the government was too slow. Not because they disrespect government, but because their livelihoods, their businesses were in trouble. And I think the communication between the department and the farming community was initially really, really bad. It still maybe hasn't healed properly. And then you have this… coming up to be saying the things that she's been saying, basically disrespecting where these people are standing. I think it's not making John Steenhuisen's life easy. Maybe…if he can’t remove her, maybe they should remove him and find somebody else with a lot more empathy and understanding of the impacts and the importance of this family community to food security, but also to the economy of South Africa.Chris Steyn (06:07.999)Mm, the word is that he's very loyal to her. So we will have to wait for the next Cabinet reshuffle, won't we?Solly Moeng (06:16.787)I don't know if Ramaphosa is going to… look it's up to the DA now, I think, to prove itself, to say to Ramaphosa, look, we are withdrawing this man, the same way they fired the previous minister of the Environment. They should say to Ramaposa, okay, we have a list of deployees, this one we're taking him back. We need to replace him. They still keep the slot. They can still find somebody else who will come back and hopefully bring more energy but then more enthusiasm, more more confidence into that community. It is important that government works with the farming community. Agriculture is our biggest contributor to the GDP and we cannot have people in there playing games, becoming arrogant because it's really arrogance. If you're going to say the kind of stuff that Jana le Roux has been saying, I don't know what else to describe it but arrogant. And she must be removed.Chris Steyn (07:14.497)In the Western Cape, the outgoing police commissioner supporting extending policing powers to the province.Solly Moeng (07:23.847)Yeah. Look, I interviewed JP from Switzerland about three years ago on this topic before the elections. And it's been going on for years. The DA in the province has been asking the national government…at the time they used the word devolution.. to devolve some of the policing powers, at least to enable the province to take care of the rampant criminality, especially gang violence, drugs and you know the stuff that we see in the streets of the some of the poorest areas in the Cape. For years, the ANC has not been wanting to do this and the political interpretation of it is that well the ANC wants the DA to fail. The ANC cannot afford to see the DA succeeding where the DA fails elsewhere. And anyway it's a great thing for the ANC to use as a political weapon against the DA ahead of elections that it's failing to drop the levels of violence in the Western Cape. Now this man is…maybe I don't know if it's Madlanga Commission inspired, he's suddenly saying, okay, well, let's not go the devolution way, which is a political decision, right? Which would require votes in the National Assembly, saying let's allow them to do certain things that will help the national police - and he's absolutely correct that will help the national police also, you know, focus its resources elsewhere. Let them do some of the things they want to do, crime investigation and preparing preparation of dockets, making sure these dockets end up with the prosecution's author authority in a very firm presentation, not in ways that end up being thrown out of court because the you know shoddy work was starting out of them. I think it's a good thing. I think it serves two purposes. One, the DA will be able, and the mayor has already said, thank you, this is what we've been asking for. But it also means that the DA cannot continue making excuses. I'm not saying it's been... Now it has the opportunity to show what it can do when it has the power that it has been asking forChris Steyn (09:29.016)Solly, back to today, June 16. What do you think the veterans of that march feel today and how do they view the prospects of their grandchildren?Solly Moeng (09:41.822)Some of them are alive today, as we speak, Chris. Some of them are not alive anymore. Many of them are disappointed. I haven't seen any one of them except those in government, of course, coming up to say, you know, we are very happy, we've made amazing progress. If we look at youth unemployment today, of course, the things facing the youth of today are totally different from the things that faced the youth in 1976. Then it was still in the heart…we were still in the belly of Apartheid and Afrikaans had been imposed, you know, as a teaching language for instruction. People didn't want that. Now there are high levels of unemployment, youth unemployment, the issue of competition for jobs with many undocumented immigrants. It's a big thing, but also failure of government, the weak economy. The biggest thing is the weak economy, the corruption, the State capture, other forms of corruption, the stuff that's coming out of Madlanga Commission, missed and squandered opportunities over these years. The ANC - and it's still the ANC that dominates the political space in South Africa - has no excuse. These are the people who came from a pace to a place of pain. They knew what needed to be done to take this country as far away from Apartheid pain as possible into a place that is promised in the preamble of the Constitution of the Republic. They have failed.Many of them have gotten big bellies, big cars, big homes, big cheques…tax-funded travel across the world over the years. But things have not changed. I grew up in Soweto, in Diepkloof, Chris. I went to Dieploof last year, the place where I grew up. It's worse than during Apartheid. It's worse than during Apartheid.Now these politicians like to come and say, yeah, but you know, the ANC, the DA, it's not taking care of its own townships. The townships in Johannesburg and elsewhere are terrible. It's worse. It's dirty. The primary school that I used to go to has got a squatter camp inside its yard. Okay? It's terrible. It actually made me go on to cry. Johannesburg, the city of Johannesburg, is dead. So young people, when you say, but these things used to be better.Solly Moeng (11:57.895)Then you get accused of saying, Yeah, Apartheid was better. No, these things were better. People whether you like it or not…downtown Johannesburg was a place where I as a teenager used to hang out with my friends. Okay. It was cool. It was really lovely. Yeoville, Hillbrow, go there today. Okay, so so we have not taken this country for the youth of the future into a place where they'd feel really, really proud to be South African. It's all pain, pain, pain. And when we talk about things that really did work, we are told you were praising Apartheid. It's not right because a lot of the young people who were born after 1994 don't know what it was like. Of course, Apartheid was terrible. This is not praising apartheid. Don't get me wrong. But the fact is we have failed them. We have had many opportunities lost. Many opportunities squandered. And people are still people in politics, in the political, you know, sphere of mostly the ANC, they still live life as if they don't have a job to do to get this pain to a place that is better for the youth of this country. They have failed us and anybody who supports the status quo electorally will be complicit to the pain.Chris Steyn (13:11.595)Yep. I was just reading about somebody sweeping streets with a degree and feeling lucky that he has an opportunity to do so. A menial job. So that was Solly Moeng, political commentator, speaking to BizNews on a very sad day for South Africa's youth. I'm Chris Steyn. Thanks, Solly.Solly Moeng (13:32.349)Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much.