Politicians From South Africa

"And in this dynamic process, Zola stood tall"

"As Zola’s family we hope that this honour will not just end here today, but will rather go a long way in reminding the people of our country - especially our future generations of leaders - that our constitutional democracy was not just received on a silver platter"

"Zola was a selfless disciplinarian who was very loving and very caring"

"It is a fundamental error in estimation and points to a fundamental flaw in the revenue estimation model of Nersa"

"To the Skweyiya family, Zola was a brother, an uncle, a beloved husband and a father, and a grandfather. To many others, he was a friend, a colleague and a comrade in arms. We all miss him dearly, but we thank God for his life and good deeds in this world"

"About 85% of energy comes from coal, by the amount of energy that is produced however by value, in rand terms coal is about 90% in Nersa’s revenue determination model so if you tamper with any of the other things you are not doing anything and you have to go to the source, being coal"

"If Zola was here today, it was not going to be about him"

"When I was at Transnet, I said South Africa must stop buying trains everywhere. We must manufacture our locomotives"

"He had to steer the ship - and he did it in his own way. Quiet by nature, he had to steer a vociferous Kader Asmal, an eloquent Albie Sachs, to the real politic of negotiations. When he spoke, all listened, because he had an inherent authority; because when he spoke it was thoughtful, visionary, yet practical"

"With utmost humility, he was going to base his acceptance speech rather on the role that UWC played in nurturing the constitution of our country. He was going to impress upon us all that UWC is the cradle that carried South Africa into its current democracy"

"If you are an ordinary person, a worker, working a menial job and the most vile deed is committed, just the cost of getting an application going, a notice of motion or founding affidavit, can run into thousands of rand"

"Eskom should not be a price taker in the coal industry but rather it should be a price maker. In reality, the opposite is true as Eskom officials rarely stand up to the bullying by rich mining companies who do not hesitate to use political and other methods of pressure to force exorbitant prices down the throat of Eskom officials"

"More importantly it points to the fundamental flaw in the operating model of Eskom"

"In South Africa, we don’t have courts of justice. We have courts of law. People don’t go to court to get justice. They go to court for a judge to apply the law, whatever the case may be"

"South Africans must stop consuming only. We need to get into the habit of making things as a country"

"To put it crudely, Eskom and Nersa are just conduits that extract money from poor South African citizens, who are surviving with minimum starvation wages to give to the rich called mining companies"

"The outcome of this is that the resultant high price of electricity is in fact a transfer via Eskom and Nersa of money from the clients of Eskom especially the poor to the rich coal mining companies that feed their insatiable appetite for profit"

"As long as you are black and poor, forget about justice"

"It was achieved through a protracted struggle waged on many fronts, and on the moral high ground of selflessness, dedication and hard work"

"He was a gentle giant to us and many. He was a man of few words. He felt his love of the poor in this country very keenly, yet didn’t spend much time talking about it. Instead he chose to act upon it"

"The Afrika Mayibuye Movement will not be a cult. It will not be a family project. It will not be a scheme for self-enrichment,"

"Drugs will never build you with anything; you will make a lot of mistakes."

"We have also learnt that our people have got a lot to say. That ordinary South Africans possess profound knowledge and ideas about their communities, from local government issues to social justice issues to issues that have to be done"

"It is important for us to be seen together so there is no division in leadership outside of the MK and inside parliament"

"We also don’t want to work with those parties that don’t represent, we only want to work with progressive forces in this country like the EFF, ATM and other progressive parties"

"The first challenge is to build a team as well as trust so we understand each other very well so that there is no misunderstanding between us"

"I believe in that kingdom, monarch and the role the Zulu kingdom played"

"The GNU in our perspective will not work, it will implode like all coalition governments"

"We trust that the integrity commissioners will aid the organisation in ensuring that its integrity and good standing is upheld‚ so that we may all take heed in the examples of life-long activists and disciplined members of our movement such as those who have been bestowed with the honours of Isithwalandwe/ Seaparankoe like Tata Nelson Mandela"

"Similarly, the Cyberforensic Academy will focus on the intersection of law and technology, equipping learners with the knowledge and expertise needed to navigate complex issues such as cybercrime, digital forensics, financial crime investigations, and beneficial ownership"

"I understand that the Portfolio Committee has a good working relationship with both the Department and the Ministry for Justice and Constitutional Development. I hope this spirit of cooperation will continue to prevail as we jointly continue to seek better ways to ensure that our service delivery makes a real impact on the lives of our people"

"It is revolving into a dynamic robust institution for the justice sector"

"The college will further cultivate an existing generation of prosecutors by ensuring they are kept up to date with the latest developments"

"A hasty dog always burns his mouth."

"There’s always a return to the ruins, only to the womb there is no return."

"So long as there are two men left on earth there will be war."

"Chief Moroka was not as great an orator as most of the Native chiefs but he excelled in philosophy. In that respect his witty expressions and dry humour were equal to those of Moshueshue, the Basuto King. He spoke in a staccato voice, with short sentences and a stop after each, as though composing the next sentence. His speeches abounded in allegories and proverbial sayings, some traditional and others spontaneous. His own maxims had about them the spice of originality which always provided his auditors with much food for thought."

"The viewpoint of the ruler is not always the viewpoint of the ruled."

"The forests shook with the awful thunder of the guns, which stirred a wild agitation among the denizens of the day. Terrified game of every description scattered in all directions and fled for dear life; oxen bellowed in surprise and wild hounds yelped, wolves and jackals ran as though possessed by a legion of devils. Wild birds rushed out of their nests and protested loudly against the unholy disturbance of the peace of their haunts."

"One party went to far away Zimbabwe and returned with pack-oxen loaded with ivory, rhinoceros hides, lion skins and hog tusks. They reported finding a people whose women dug the mountain sides for nuggets and brittle stones, which they brought home to boil and produce a beautiful metal from which to mould bangles and ornaments of rare beauty. That was the Matebele’s first experience of gold smelting."

"A man was not made to live alone. Had it not been for Mhudi, I don’t think you would have known me at all. She made me what I am. I feel certain that your manhood will never be recognized as long as you remain wifeless."

"That exactly is how my father and mother met and became man and wife. There were no home ceremonials, such as the seeking and obtaining of parental consent, because there were no parent; no conferences by uncles and grand-uncles, or exhortations by grandmothers and aunts; no male relatives to arrange the marriage knot, nor female relations to herald the family union, and no uncles of the bride to divide the bogadi (dowry) cattle as, of course, there were no cattle. It was a simple matter of taking each other for good and or ill with the blessing of the ‘God of Rain’. The forest was their home, the rustling trees their relations, the sky their guardian and the birds, who sealed the marriage contract with the songs, the only guests. Here they stablished their home and names it Re-Nosi (We-are-alone)."

"Never be led by a female lest thou fall over a precipice."

"They stripped him of the very dignity we had spoken about in discussing Nineteen Eighty-Four, and they did it because, to them, he was 'just another kaffir', and that is what I will never forgive them for."

"The challenge South Africa is having is poverty and unemployment and the biggest barrier to this is the skills gap."

"Even though 2021 was a challenging year, the country demonstrated its adaptive and innovative spirit."

"Let me draw your attention to Mzilikazi, when he fell upon us, murdering and pillaging – did he benefit from it, or suffer harm? Was he able to remain in his country, or did he have to flee? Let me draw your attention to our negotiations with Dingane, who in his demeanour had the likeness of a sheep, but in his heart was a ravaging wolf. How did it work out for him? Did he benefit, or suffer harm?"

"Moroka and also your father Moshesh would confirm in which circumstances they were at the time of our crossing of the Orange River – how we formed a wall of protection around them against the robbery and destruction of the Korannas and Basters – and how it subsequently went with them, as Rev. Archbell and Mr. Sephton can testify. In fact, in the year 1834, in a company of 10 men, namely A. and J. Struijs, A. and P. Pienaar, H. and P. van Heerden, A. Duvenage, A. Visagie, P. Cilliers and myself, we undertook a commission trek to the far side of the Vals River, during which we were able to view the region from the Modder River almost to the Renoster River. At this time, this region was empty, so to speak without inhabitants, with only here and there a few particularly lean and emaciated kaffirs who were in the process of starving. Wherever we went at this time, I did not see any sheep, goats or cattle. Those who escaped the assegai of Mzilikazi and the ravages of the Basters and Korannas, yes also survived famine, subsisted by digging trapping pits at the waters' edge. We also observed more than once that they carried bones and remains of overnight lion and hyena catches back to their kraals, when they saw the vultures descending on these. Out of compassion we shot a lot of game for them, and a group of them also accompanied us. In two places we met with horrible scenes. At the first I saw a stream where the waters had washed the corpses into a heap. The second was a defile in a cliff which was so to speak filled up with human bones. Upon our return home, we sent a memorandum, signed by 72 men, to the Cape Governor requesting to go and live there. This request was however denied."

"... he had a leather bag around one shoulder, which he still carried and which contained his papers, including Mr Retief's negotiated treaty with Dingane, the circumscription of the land – this was to us all a wonder to see, as the bodies had been lying there for so long, and since the papers were still so unblemished and clean…"

"In the year 1836, if my recollection is right, we undertook to leave our motherland, and then crossed the Orange River. Would you now testify against us, whether we took anything without compensation from anyone during our passage? On the contrary, we exchanged with each tribe a lot of wheat and maize for our livestock, whereby we also enriched your father Moshesh. We trekked as far as the Vaal River, where Mzilikazi, the conqueror of you all, also unexpectedly overwhelmed our people. He killed a good part of us and robbed us of a very large part of our property, me being absent while on the commission trip to Zoutpansberg. When we returned from thence to the Renoster River, at Vechtkop, Mzilikazi attacked us again and also robbed us of all our livestock. When we were thus helpless, and in great distress, not your father Moshesh, but the Rev. Mr. Archbell with Moroka assisted us, for which I still thank them. They are still our friends, who have done us no harm to this day. Nor have Moroka's people robbed us, whereas our brethren suffered greatly under the pillaging of your father's people. To return to my story – we retreated from Vechtkop to Moroka's land. He received us as his friends and also made a donation of wheat for our hungry women and children. Moroka sent some of his people to join us on the first commando against Mzilikazi, our great enemy who was likewise your father's enemy."