New Ooms sweep clean

Down in the kingdom, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli is also cleaning house

Thursday.

Down here in the Kingdom, Premier Thami Ntuli has just wrapped up a two-day lekgotla of his provincial unity cabinet ahead of his state of the province address in Pietermaritzburg next week.

It’s a replication of the process the president led nationally two weekends ago and has also come up with a basic common programme of action for immediate implementation by the provincial government over the next few months.

Basic is the operative word.

There’s an agreement to professionalise the civil service and the state-owned entities in the province and to hold senior officials accountable for corruption and maladministration in government departments.

There is also an agreement to focus on revitalising agriculture and the township and rural economy — and to promote business initiatives for young people — along with interventions in the municipalities in general, and in eThekwini in particular.

The more difficult issues have been kicked down the road to be dealt with later — as they have been nationally — but the coalition partners have come out of the lekgotla with a common vision and programme for the next few months.

There are disputes over local government between Ntuli’s Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the National Freedom Party (NFP) — and with the ANC — but the premier believes that these are inevitable, and solvable, teething problems.

There are also court papers and letters of suspension flying back and forth between the factions in the NFP, which gave Ntuli’s government its single-seat majority in the provincial legislature and got him into the premier’s office.

The NFP barely made it to the ballot paper because of the internal power struggles that have been raging since the death of its founder, Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi.

Within days of Ntuli proclaiming his government, the NFP’s internal battle was back on as the factions in the party reverted to form and went to war with each other again.

The NFP infighting now affects not only the party, but its instability threatens that of Ntuli’s government as well.

The premier has also appointed the ANC’s provincial chairperson, Siboniso Duma, as leader of government business in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.

Duma held the position during Nomusa Dube-Ncube’s short — and inglorious — term as the province’s first citizen.

During Dube-Ncube’s tenure, Duma earned the dubious title of shadow premier with his microphone — and Rugby World Cup trophy — snatching tendencies.

At the post-lekgotla media briefing Ntuli said although he had given Duma back his old position as leader of government business, he had not appointed him as “deputy premier”.

Duma may have laughed along with Ntuli and the punters at the briefing, but he made sure he secured the premier’s go-ahead before approaching the microphone on the boardroom table to respond to questions from the floor.

Long may it last.

Elsewhere in the Republic, Oom Pieter Groenewald has been cooking — some would say braaing — since President Cyril Ramaphosa put him in charge of our prison system.

It’s not just the prayer meetings in the head office.

Oom appears to be committed to emphasising the correctional nature of his new portfolio, with a series of raids on jails across the country to introduce himself to his new constituents.

The minister appears to have —rightly — taken offence at the social media videos posted by prisoners bragging about their luxurious lifestyle inside.

The dogs have been unleashed — literally and figuratively — in response.

Oom has gone full John Wick and life — and cells — have been turned upside down in Johannesburg’s Sun City prison and elsewhere, where PlayStations, sex toys, cellphones and lipstick are among the more interesting items seized in the last two weeks.

Groenewald’s former — and current — parliamentary colleagues who are facing corruption charges and a minimum sentence of 15 years in the slammer must be having palpitations as we speak.

It’s not just the realisation that there will be no chance to play Grand Theft Auto — no Gucci blanket, no preferential treatment  — if they do end up behind bars for their till-raiding escapades.

The Freedom Front Plus believes prisoners should pay for their own keep — and square their debt to society — through compulsory labour, rather than by playing computer games and making TikTok videos.

It made this intention very clear in its manifesto for the 29 May elections and Groenewald may well be enthused to pursue this agenda now that he is in a position to influence how our prisons are run.

Oom will have some constitutional difficulties if he does try to introduce forced labour behind bars.

Slavery is illegal, after all.

But if he does manage to deliver on what his party promised the voters,  some members of our political and criminal class may end up actually working for a living — for the first time in their lives.