Poor Lynne Brown. Poor, sad Lynne Brown. What a terrible situation to find oneself in. She is, ostensibly, the minister of public enterprises.
She is not. A mere glance at what she has been going through at SAA makes it clear that she is a mere seat-warmer, an empty suit, an effigy on a chair.
The decisions are made elsewhere. The minister exists merely to take the blame when it will, inevitably, need to be apportioned. She is waiting to be blamed for something at SAA for which she is not responsible.
SAA is now nothing less than a comedy show. Just like the SABC. Just like the Post Office. Just like Eskom. Just like our parliament.
Events at SAA have been more than sad to watch. It is a microcosm of everything that is going wrong with our government and our politics. It is a hive of the politics of patronage, cronyism, sloth and failure. It is an example of men and women of integrity failing to stop and ask: Why am I doing all this for one man?
The SAA chairman, Dudu Myeni, who has been named by the Mail & Guardian newspaper as currently engaged in, or having engaged in, an intimate relationship with the president of our republic, has been running rings around Brown for months. Her word seems to be taken as that of an anointed leader rather than that of someone who has to comply, like the rest of us, with the rules of corporate governance.
First, she lied to SAA by claiming that she has a bachelor of arts degree, which she doesn't.
Over the past fortnight she has rushed to change her story and now claims that she had merely forgotten to say that she had not completed two major courses for the degree.
It is not a degree, darling, until you have completed your majors, passed the exams and received a degree from the institution.
In this regard she is at one with other leaders of our state-owned enterprises. At the SABC we have the chairman of the board - also linked several times to the president of the republic - taking parliament to court for asking her to produce her degree after she lied about graduating from Unisa as a bachelor of commerce.
The chief operating officer of the SABC claimed he had a matric when he did not.
None of the three is out of a job.
Lesson to our kids: Don't worry about study and application. Just lie, or sleep, your way to the top.
Two weeks ago Myeni suspended SAA CEO Monwabisi Kalawe. The minister, who has fired a whole board to accommodate Myeni, ordered her to lift the suspension.
Myeni told a shareholder meeting, and the minister in writing, that Kalawe's suspension had been lifted.
However, inquiries by Business Day revealed that the airline was claiming that Kalawe was "on leave". His access to his office was blocked. His was locked out of his e-mail.
SAA appointed an acting CEO, Nico Bezuidenhout, claiming that Kalawe was on "special leave". Kalawe's lawyer said this was a "blatant lie".
And so it is that, for the second time now, Myeni has defied Brown's orders as the shareholder representative and gone ahead and done what she deems fit.
What is her power?
Is it because she is the chairman of the Jacob Zuma Foundation? Is it because her son has been "integrated" into the Zuma family? Is it because she is known to drop Zuma's name in conversation?
What has happened to Lynne Brown? This is a stalwart of the struggle. This is a woman generally perceived to be a person of integrity and honesty.
How exactly does a person like this end up in a mess in which she becomes an apologist for the absolute nonsense that is taking place at SAA?
How does she manage to sleep at night when yet another Zuma untouchable runs amok at the national airline?
She is not the only one. Two weeks ago Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president, went to parliament to tell the National Assembly that the president of the republic would not be fulfilling his constitutional duty of appearing before the house at least four times a year.
Last Thursday we saw the good men and women of the ANC united in defending - to the point of fisticuffs - the president of South Africa's wanton theft of R246-million of taxpayers' money.
They howled and threatened violence in defence of Zuma.
Do ANC MPs actually believe that the security upgrading at Zuma's private homestead are justified at R246-million? Including the million-rand cattle kraal?
The answer doesn't matter. Last week, like sheep, they were happy to endorse this theft of taxpayers' money as they adopted a sham of a report authored by six of their own exonerating Zuma - again.
Why have the good people of the ANC become so fearful and useless?
What has happened to their backbone? Where is the ANC?
- Timeslive
