Popcru walkout shows contempt

THE walkout by two senior Popcru members from the Jali Commission last week will do little to dispel the feeling that the militant prisons union has much to do with the chaos and corruption that has gripped SA prisons.

The two, Popcru deputy president Meshak Mpemva and Erik Nweba, believe that the manner in which evidence is being presented is biased. They believe that the prosecution has been selective in what it is presenting before Judge Thambani Jali.

Seeing as they’re not facing charges but are merely meant to be assisting the inquiry to get to the bottom of the prisons malaise, their behaviour is extraordinary.

If they truly believe that the commission is being fed a lopsided story, why are they walking away. As prosecutor Vas Soni said, Mpemva and Nweba were at the centre of much of the controversy and now that it was their turn to be placed in the witness box where they would be cross-examined, they preferred to attack the integrity of those who had investigated them.

Mpemva is clearly hallucinating when he says the walkout serves to indicate that the commission has lost all of its integrity.

On the contrary, the commission has grown steadily in stature as a result of Judge Jali’s no-nonsense approach and exposure of outrageous abuses, nepotism, sexual discrimination and much more, most of it allegedly perpetrated by Popcru members.

The walkout also seems to confirm Popcru’s contempt for government-backed authority. It will be Jali’s prerogative to rule on whether evidence has been biased or not – and not prisons officials who now find themselves squirming under the glare of the public spotlight.

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Urgent need to sort out lottery problems

THINK about it rationally.The chances of winning the national lottery are infinitesimal, yet millions feed this greedy beast on a weekly basis in the remote hope that they’ll score a big hit and live happily ever after.

They’re attracted to it like bees to honey, religiously pumping in their contributions, knowing they’re as likely to be hit on the head by a passing meteor as they are to banking the loot.

But such is the human spirit of opportunism and hope.

It’s folly, but it’s fun to have a stake and as the old saying goes, if you don’t have a ticket, you don’t have a chance.

Yes, there are those who do not know when enough is enough, and it is unfortunately these sorry souls who usually cannot afford it.

But the real issue at the centre of the government’s shelving of the daily Lotto game is the mounting public concern over the failure to distribute more than R1-billion in lottery proceeds to charities.

Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin should use this “pause for reflection” as an opportunity to sort out the delivery logjam that is holding up distribution of the lottery funds to the needy.

It is this tragic delay that is threatening to taint the principle of a national lottery which is accepted internationally as a legitimate means of state-sponsored fund-raising to assist the poor.