Listen here.In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, political commentator Solly Moeng comments on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s poor handling of the immigration (and other) crisis; the mysterious social media campaign to position Freedom Front Plus Minister of Correctional Services Pieter Groenewald as a future president; questions about the R30 million “donation” to Rise Mzansi, the party that has an MP chairing the Ramaphosa impeachment committee; unholy links between General Feroz Khan of Crime Intelligence and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Commander-in-Chief Julius Malema; 14 police officers suspended in relation to a tender linked to the politically connected Cat Matlala; and the failure to arrest alleged Tembisa Hospital looting kingpin Hangwani Morgan Maumela, the nephew by marriage of Ramaphosa. “...if you arrest the small guys and you let the big guys continue the games they're playing on all of us, then we're going to end up having the same conversations in a year's time…they should dig out everyone who's hiding in the crevices of this madness, take them into the public space and…hopefully the NPA this time will act without fear, favour or prejudice and go after everybody. Else, South Africans must vote…We need to place this country ahead of all these mad men and women in politics.”.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 (00:01.162)It has been a tumultuous start to this week and somebody who is keeping a close watch on developments is political commentator Solly Moeng. Welcome back with us, SollySolly Moeng (00:13.485)Thank you, Chris. Thank you so much. It's a fast moving news cycleChris Steyn (00:21.92)Angry South Africans have defied President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to march again against the employment of foreigners.Solly Moeng (00:36.545)Yeah. Look, he is a very lucky dude, I must say, because when he first came, when he first became president, people thought he would be the last hope for South Africa. He's a charming man on a good day. You know, he's the kind of guy you want to hug, you want to believe him. He seems credible when he says stuff, but he knows how to use that to manipulate. He says all the right things. Now, I think that a lot of people now are beginning to see through him. Somebody showed me a video of him speaking out against illegal foreigners. I think it was shown in 2019. So people are saying, wait a minute, it's enough. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all over the time. The fact is that there's a serious issue of illegal immigration in South Africa, there's a serious issue of government-employed people at Home Affairs, border crossings who are either demanding or accepting bribes, even at Traffic Licensing departments were giving all sorts of official papers, South African papers to foreigners. You cannot… this thing away. Sending…envoys to all these countries to say, Look, we're busy working on this thing, don't worry. You can't keep putting a plaster on a wound that is clearly festering and expect that the wound will go away. It won't.Chris Steyn (01:52.236)He took his time to make that address. Can you recall a time that he has spoken timeously?Solly Moeng (01:55.839)No, Ramaposa doesn't. I think he's the kind of politician who thinks, you know, if I keep quiet, it'll go away because there's so much happening all the time. People will lose focus, they'll focus on the next big story. So he keeps hoping that South Africans will forget it. But I think it seems to me that South Africans are beginning to say, wait, you can't keep doing that to us. It's enough. You know, he doesn't make decisions. And and look, in terms of firing ministers, removing ministers, he doesn't listen. The former minister of justice who was implicated in VBS, instead of removing her, he shifted her sideways. And South Africans are not going to forget that. The former Minister of Health during COVID, is sitting nicely as an ANC parliamentarian, chairing an important parliamentary committee. So all this stuff. And South Africans are like, wait a minute, we're being taken for a ride here.Chris Steyn (02:52.59)So you're saying he puts his head in the sand and then when he can't keep it in there anymore, he comes out and tries to gaslight the nation.Solly Moeng (03:00.928)Yeah, but I also wonder, you know, maybe it's a structural issue. We know that the president, just like all politicians elected in government, are deployees of their respective political party or parties, right? So Ramaposa's political bosses are the top six…he still has to go back to those people and find concurrence on some of these major decisions. And if you look at the kind of people who were sitting at the top six of the ANC, it doesn't give anybody courage. So they have to agree, do we have to do this one? Do we remove this guy? I don't think that he takes these decisions on his own. He's not a victim, he's leader of the party. But the point is, look at Tolashe. It took time for him to remove her right? Others he doesn't remove because he has to work with the party that says no you move here and no you don't move there.Chris Steyn (03:52.578)Meanwhile, there is mystery surrounding the social media campaign to position Freedom Front Plus Minister of Correctional Services Pieter Groenewald as a future president. What is going on there?Solly Moeng (04:02.722)Yeah, that's quite interesting, isn't it? And Corne Mulder doesn't seem to be happy with that. He seems to be saying, well, I've been told by some Americans, don't know which Americans, that there might be an intelligence driven propaganda machine to position Dr. Groenewald as a potential presidential material. I mean, they're coming from the same party. Groenewald is his predecessor. Why can they sort it out between themselves? Groenewald has not said much. I haven't heard him say, look, I want to be president. I think I can be the next best thing for South Africa. And it's such a ridiculous thing because it comes from a small minority Afrikaans party… for him to be supported by the majority of black voters is going to be quite interesting. Groenewald is a good guy. I'm not saying he's not, but it's a very ridiculous campaign. I don't know who started this, who's driving it. Now we're hearing about songs supporting the Groenewald presidency, which are created by AI. It's an information warfare happening out there to manipulate the minds and hearts of South Africans. It's quite interesting.Chris Steyn (05:26.049)What would the motivation for such an intelligence operation be?Solly Moeng (05:32.772)It's very hard to say, you know, it really is hard to say. I mean, look, South Africa, first of all, it's true that we are tired of presidents who don't work for the people. We are tired of the ANC by and large, we are disappointed in the GNU, which has turned out to be a damp squib. Maybe some people think, you know, we need somebody who has not much to lose. Groenewald is an older guy, he knows politics. I mean, he's a decent guy. He seems to me like a decent guy. Maybe that's what we need. Or maybe they're just trying to ruffle the feathers of Corné Mulder because he's the leader of the party today and he's not happy with what is happening. He's not being pushed. Groenewald is being pushed.So it's a very, it's a distraction. In any case, and in any case we're not voting for the president and we don't vote directly for the president. The next election is about local governments, they're not about national governments.Chris Steyn (06:34.541)Well, hopefully by the next time a president has to be elected, the nation is in a position to elect him themselves. What do you think, Solly?Solly Moeng (06:45.742)Look, elections in South Africa are not just for the African National Congress and its parties, its friends to lose. They are for somebody to win. So if Groenewald thinks he might be the right candidate, it will be up to him to come up with a good programme and come up with a good team to say to South Africans, we have something totally different to offer you. This is what it entails. And then it will be up to South Africans to decide whether it's credible or not.Chris Steyn (07:13.165)Now questions are being asked about that so-called R30 million rand donation to Rise Mzansi.Solly Moeng (07:23.151)Dear, dear, dear. Look, that's the thing. If you look at the leader of Rize Mzansi, he was, I think, largely a respected media person before. This is what politics does to you. To run a political party, to grow his footprint, to stay in the game, you need a lot of money. And some of that money might come from places that you're not even going to be able to speak about with your chin up, right?Seemingly these guys were given 30 million rands as a loan and suddenly that loan…gets turned into a donation…Of course it's nonsense. A lot …want to know, who is this group that's giving you this money?... We don't know that obscure movement. And we mustn't be naive. The person from the ANC who elected Gama to lead, to chair this committee, didn't just rise on the day on his own. There's always a lot of political lobbying behind the scenes…must have been host trading. Look, we went to elect one of you, whom do we elect and who's going to support him. Suddenly all the GNU, the main GNU partners are standing with the ANC. So there's a lot of horse trading. that has taken place. I think that, of course, this guy has been nominated, he's been supported, but there is a reasonable apprehension of bias that, you know, any reasonable person looking at this thing from our side has a right to suspect… are we being played again? Is it all about protecting the Ramaphosa in exchange for their blue lights and comforts? We don't know. South Africans must keep the scrutiny on this one.Chris Steyn (09:28.503)I am just wondering whether the election of the MP as head of the impeachment committee could have had something to do with the timing of this loan or donation being questioned.Solly Moeng (09:43.499)No, it seems so. Look, the Rize Mzansi might not occupy a ministerial position in the GNU, but…they benefited from the broader GNU arrangement. I mean, the leader of Rise Mzansi, a small, small, small party, is now the chairperson of SCOPA. It's a very important parliamentary committee…government spending and all that.These guys are supposed to, how to say, to kind of to declare their political funding. Where do they get the money from? So it's suddenly getting murky…. These are not two separate stories. The T30 million donation/slash… and the appointment of this gentleman into the position. These are not two stories. …and the IEC is doing the right thing. So wait a minute, we need to know who are the people that gave you this money? How does it link to you getting support by the IEC? Whose funding are you supposed to be questioning. Now they, the ANC, decided okay we're going to support you. Like I say, all of this stuff follows a lot of lobbying behind this before it gets to where you and I as members of the public see it. So we need to continue trying to see where the dots connect because I do believe that the dots connect somewhere and the world must watch this guy no matter what he says they would not have placed him in that position if they were not sure that he would be…Solly Moeng (11:23.621)…he would do what he's expected to do. That is not to be too harsh on Ramaphosa. They have the numbers there, the GNU numbers on their side. Let's see how they want to play the game.Chris Steyn (11:34.797)In some good news, 14 police officers have now been suspended in relation to a tender linked to the politically connected Cat Matlala.Solly Moeng (11:48.011)Yeah, look, it's all fine. It's all fine that all these senior police officers are being exposed, they're being arrested. Matlalaa remains in prison for different things… for attempted murder and apparently a good number of other charges. There's a certain Maumela whose name keeps coming and disappearing and it seems like nobody wants to talk about this man. So we need to know what is going on. You might remember that when De Ruyter spoke about ESKOM a number of years ago, he said there was a politician he was afraid to mention. He hasn't mentioned. So each time there are these major investigations that happen there are always names that do not get mentioned even at the beginning of this whole Madlanga thing…there was talk of five key leaders.., I think they mentioned three. There are still people who have not been named. So what is going on? I think it's important that we don't just rejoice in the arrest of small guys. These are not small guys of course in the biggest scheme of things… but we need to know the political ties. I see something has just come out that seems to link to Julius Malema. We don't know what else is going on out there. I think that we need to continue demanding, South Africans must continue demanding to know who else because if you arrest the small guys and you let the big guys continue the games they're playing on all of us, then we're going to end up having the same conversations in a year's time. These things should stop and they should dig out everyone who's hiding in the crevices of this madness, take them into the public space and let the NPA, hopefully the NPA this time, will act without fear, favour or prejudice and go after everybody who must be arrested. Else, South Africans must vote. Well, they should anyway. We've seen South Africans, South Africans need strength. We need to place this country ahead of of all these mad men and women in politics.Chris Steyn (13:51.084)Yes, according to court documents, there seems to have been an unethical relationship, to put it euphemistically, between General Feroz Khan of Crime Intelligence and the Commander-in-Chief of the Economic Freedom Fighters.Solly Moeng (14:05.323)Yeah, Again, I think a lot of these things go back to who is funding which party. Nobody gives money to politicians for nothing.Okay, there's always a little, okay, we're going to support you here, we're going to be doing XYZ for you over there. So I'm not surprised. I don't think many South Africans are not surprised that, you know, Malema's name is being mentioned here and possibly other names will be mentioned. Now it's going to be up to the Madlanga Commission, which so far carries a lot of public favour and I really hope that they continue digging and showing the public what's going on because this is what the public wants to see. If there's Malema today, there are other leaders of political parties who've been used to manipulate parliamentary processes in favour of the people who support them or not... this stuff has to be exposed. And South Africans must be very, very clear about what country they want to live in. If you're to support a political party or a politician because they speak well in front of cameras and microphones, they dance well, they say all the nice, manipulative things to weaponise the pain of partheid, colonialism, play the race card, and if you allow that to happen at the expense of this beautiful republic of ours, then you are on the wrong camp.Chris Steyn (15:27.213)You mentioned Maumela earlier, Hangwani Morgan Malumela, the nephew by marriage of President Cyril Ramaphosa. And the question on everybody's lips, why has he not been arrested?Solly Moeng (15:40.163)Yeah, exactly. Why has he not been arrested? Even Ramaphosa tried to pretend he didn't know this, man. I mean, the whole thing is so ridiculous. It's come out. It seems like people are afraid. Of course…many people have reason to be afraid because we've seen the number of assassinations that happen out there. But you know what? The truth has a way. It's like light. You can't hide it in darkness forever. The truth has a way of coming out. And the criminal justice system, whatever remains of it, if it takes itself seriously, it must convince the public that there's no reason for it to go after this Maumelaa. And if they are protecting him, then it means that we are in bigger trouble than it appears.Chris Steyn (16:23.165)It's only Tuesday, Solly, but it's already been quite a week. Thank you so much for dissecting the latest developments for BizNews. That was Solly Moeng, political commentator, speaking to me, Chris SteynSolly Moeng (16:37.262)Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. Let's keep watching the space.