Of all the idiotic drivel that we have seen from the pen of the President – this mornings attempt at spindoctoring the deep kak that South Africa is in after being greylisted takes the cake.

The title of Cyril’s weekly missive to the peasants reads; “SOUTH AFRICA’S GREY LISTING IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO STRENGTHEN THE FIGHT AGAINST FINANCIAL CRIMES.”

Sir, merely stating the obvious and doing sweet fokol about it does not exonerate you from blame and nor does it fix things. You could have lead with the bit about your Mother being murdered or said that a divorce is just an opportunity to go out and get drunk – so NOT helpful.

As a country we are teetering on the brink – your peasants can accept a bit of cash in the sofa, money to Dubai, washing of hands in 15 year old Whiskey, fast cars and faster women, corruption and fraud.

BUT, your dear peasants will not take the current affront on their most basic needs – a shortage of electricity (and yet the prices keep on going up), a lack of water (and those prices also keep going up) and a complete lack of national identity, sitting down.

Just like the speech: “Now is the winter of our discontent” by William Shakespeare from Richard III – spoken by Gloucester, which begins; “Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried,” signaled a seminal change along with Martin Luther King who described the struggle for social and political rights in the United States as the “summer of our discontent.”

Ever since his first speech at the start of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. had been insisting, “There comes a time when people get tired.” But in the spring and summer of 1963, black exasperation was boiling over into defiant resolve. As King would describe it in Why We Can’t Wait, this was “the summer of our discontent.”

AND, Just like Martin Luther King our “summer of discontent” as South Africans draws near. South Africans are tired!

Who will step into the gap and lead us out of the Wilderness?

I cannot think of one sitting MP that I would trust to successfully and ethically run a corner shop selling sweets, bread and milk.

We have lost our moral compass in the rush to feed at the trough of our discontent.

Unlike our Chinese partners in BRICS our nation is only focused on immediate gains and we have no concept of Chinese planning which takes into account the next one hundred years.

We sold our tribesmen into slavery, we shipped our minerals to the colonialists and now we sell our land to the highest bidder. All this whilst us peasants toil and toil.

Our religions cannot agree, neighbours cannot agree, schools fight, gangs kill, lowly officials feast on KFC, taxes and prices rise daily and hard earned taxpayer money funds frivolous things.

AND, most damning of all, those of us who are still “glass half full people” have noticed that someone stole the water out of our glass and it is now definitely NOT half full anymore.

Read the full letter to the peasants from our President below [My comments in brackets]:

Dear Fellow South African [read: peasant],

Last week, South Africa was put on a ‘grey list’ [any words in inverted commas imply that the situation is not that bad] by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for falling short of certain international standards [fok international standards, this is Africa baby!] for the combating of money laundering and other serious financial crimes.

The FATF is a global body that aims to tackle global money laundering and terrorist financing. South Africa has been a member of FATF for the last 20 years due to our commitment to fight these criminal activities both at home and across the world [and in 20 years we have got worse, not better].

The listing of South Africa as a ‘jurisdiction under increased monitoring’ – commonly known as grey listing – has caused much concern [and huge face and financial losses] about the state of our financial institutions, law enforcement agencies and investment environment. The situation is concerning but less dire than some people suggest [especially those with foreign currency stuffed in their sofas].

We have gone through a rigorous process [i.e. this letter to you my peasants blaming you for our grey listing] of addressing the issues that FATF has raised with us. The fundamentals are in place and we know what we need to do to get off the grey list. We are determined to do this as quickly as possible. This is important not only for our international standing, but also for our own ability to fight these crimes in our country.

Since the dawn of democracy in 1994 we have sought to build credible, independent institutions and implement effective laws to deal with complex financial crimes of this nature [sought and failed].

We have also forged collaborative relationships with transnational entities and global bodies in the financial sector, including the FATF and Interpol. During South Africa’s last regular mutual evaluation of its measures to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, a number of deficiencies were identified [Which were what specifically? A lack of moral fibre, A lack of grey matter?].

The mutual evaluation was conducted in 2019, when the country was emerging from the state capture era [which we are STILL in], which had a particularly detrimental impact on institutions like the South African Revenue Service (SARS), National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Hawks [and politicians as well who ‘needed’ R4 Million rand vehicles].

Since the results of the mutual evaluation were published in 2021, we have made great progress in addressing the identified shortcomings. Of the 67 recommended actions emanating from the mutual evaluation, we have successfully addressed all but eight strategic deficiencies [having lunch, writing a letter, taking a nap are not actions].

For example, we have addressed significant weaknesses in our legal framework, through the enactment of amendments to laws on anti-money laundering and combating terrorism financing [you forgot about the political terrorism waged on your peasants daily].

When it comes to developing world-class expertise, legislative reform and strengthening state institutions to combat complex financial crime, we have come a long way [you need to change direction]. This is notwithstanding deliberate attempts to erode the state’s ability to detect, investigate and prosecute such crimes during the state capture era [look in the mirror].

We have restored credibility to key institutions like SARS and the NPA to enable them to fulfil their respective mandates. We have bolstered the powers of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) by establishing a Special Tribunal to recover public funds stolen through corruption and fraud, and an Investigative Directorate in the NPA to investigate serious corruption [which continues to be thwarted by slow process and prepaid lawyers].

Last week, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana announced in the Budget that additional funds will be allocated to the police, NPA, SIU and Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) to strengthen the fight against crime and corruption [just throwing money at a problem does NOT solve it].

One of our most effective tools for combating money laundering and other financial crimes is the multidisciplinary Fusion Centre we established in 2020. The Fusion Centre brings together bodies like the NPA, SIU, SARS, the Hawks, Crime Intelligence, State Security Agency and the FIC. Since its inception the work of the Fusion Centre has led to the preservation and recovery of approximately R1.75 billion in criminal assets [vs hundreds of billions stolen JUST at Eskom – let’s get real, guys!].

It is noteworthy that the strategic deficiencies identified by the FATF do not relate directly to the country’s financial sector [what a load of codswallop – it is about FACE and our trustworthiness]. This means that financial stability and costs of doing business with South Africa will not be seriously impacted [any negative impact IS serious] by the grey listing.

Partnerships between government and the financial sector have played a valuable role in efforts to address serious economic crimes. The South Africa Anti-Money Laundering Integrated Task Force was set up in 2019 as a partnership between the banking sector and government regulatory authorities. Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of March 2022 successful interventions by the Task Force led to the preservation of criminal assets worth R86 million [and Eskom’s hundreds of Billions?].

Like all countries we are dealing with the shifting sands of globalised crime and criminal syndicates. The challenge facing authorities is to anticipate criminal innovation [no need to anticipate, just open your eyes] and to respond swiftly and effectively.

As a country we welcome the intensified monitoring by FATF [really?]. We have a focused action plan in place to address the remaining deficiencies identified by the FATF [acknowledge, write to the peasants, ignore]. Most of these deficiencies relate to the implementation of our laws. For example, we need to be able to demonstrate, among other things, an increase in the investigation and prosecution of serious and complex money-laundering and terrorism financing, an increase in mutual legal assistance requests to other countries, an increase in the use of financial intelligence by law enforcement agencies, and the effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions [in other words ‘we’ will need to squeeze more money out of taxpayers].

Our action plan to address these deficiencies is aligned with the work we are doing to implement the recommendations of the State Capture Commission as outlined in our submission to Parliament in October last year [poor Jacob must be farging miffed that he didn’t hang around for this looting of Eskom – his pay day would have been ginormous].

As a country that both values and enforces the rule of law [in relation to you, my peasants and not to the exalted, connected, trough feeding political masters that lord over you until a week before elections], the grey listing is an opportunity for us to tighten our controls and improve our response to organised crime. This will ultimately place us on a stronger footing to effectively fight these damaging and dangerous crimes [does your Mommy know that you tell ‘Porky Pies’ for a living?].

With best regards,

Lord C.
President of the Peasants.
Of all the idiotic drivel that we have seen from the pen of the President – this mornings attempt at spindoctoring the deep kak that South Africa is in after being greylisted takes the cake.