“I maintain my innocence” - Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said as she left center stage – another arrogant ‘servant of the people’ – the investigators are still searching for her wig and designer bag, part of the millions in bribes she received, amongst other things.
The Breath-taking arrogance of the Nomenklatura was on full display in the past few weeks with the ‘former’ Speaker of Parliament taking the National Prosecuting Authority to Court to stop them from charging and arresting her for criminal wrongdoing – HOW DARE THEY – is what her papers before the Court shouted.
ENTITLEMENT ON FULL DISPLAY - “Entitlement is just the grossest kind of human behaviour”, as Jessica Parker Kennedy so correctly observed.
But on Wednesday the speaker of South Africa’s National Assembly resigned, a day after a judge cleared the way for her to be arrested on charges that she took bribes when she served as defence minister.
Her resignation comes amid a tense, weekslong standoff with law enforcement officials over a corruption case that has dealt a blow to the governing African National Congress two months before a critical national election.
On Tuesday, a judge threw out Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula’s court application seeking to prevent her arrest. The next day she was brought down to earth as she sat in the dock in court, as ACCUSED NO. 1.
Mapisa-Nqakula is accused of soliciting more than 2.3 million rand worth of bribes from a defence contractor in exchange for awarding contracts between 2016 and 2019. She received vast amounts of cash – one wonders whether it was also stashed in luxury handbags, or maybe in a couple of KFC buckets?!
These people have become so brazen after 30 years in power that she filed two urgent interdicts against the National Prosecuting Authority for having the audacity to want to charge her with criminal misconduct. The Pretoria High Court struck Mapisa-Nqakula's second urgent bid to interdict the State from arresting her on corruption charges from the roll - with costs. That ruling effectively paved the way for the State to arrest Mapisa-Nqakula and to bring her before court. In dismissing the effort to prevent her arrest, Justice Sulet Potterill said on Tuesday that “the floodgates will be opened” for every suspect to ask the court to stop his or her arrest “on speculation that there is a weak case.”
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has been released on bail, but not before, in a moment of absurdity, the gross neglect that she has presided over as a 30-yearslong member of the Nomenklatura, was ventilated in court. The former Speaker was also, amongst other incredible things, Minister of the Department of Correctional Services [the Prisons]. During her bail application her lawyer argued before the court, that one of the reasons why she should be granted bail and not be sent to prison whilst awaiting her trial, is that the prisons are overcrowded, badly maintained and posing a threat to her dignity! YES THAT’S TRUE. Once she had collected her pay checks, been driven around in limousines under police protection and living in multi-million rand ‘executive housing’ whilst Minister of Prisons, she advanced her own incompetence and participation in rendering the prisons unsafe for human habitation, as the very same reason why she should not be sent to prison whilst awaiting her trial!!
The Bag Lady & Cash Consumer has finally met her match. Some other members of the Nomenklatura should be very afraid as judgment day may be just over the horizon for them.
… and then there is this …