Phillip de Wet
@phillipdewet
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Foreign editor, News24. Now mostly at
Joined January 2010
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Pinned Tweet
This seems like an excellent weekend to play with Mastodon:
If you are a fellow asylum seeker, reply with your details please? It's weird not having people to follow.
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The Twitter account for
@Enterprisefoods
is suddenly protected, and its website is down.
Not a good start as its golden hour bleeds away.
If it does not respond soon – and very well – this could be a corporate meltdown for the history books.
#listeriosis
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R18,500 a month to learn financial journalism. That is, /we/ pay /you/ R18,500 to learn financial journalism.
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Impressive how Lodidox, until June an inactive shelf company, managed to raise R450m to buy ANN7/New Age, innit?
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Can't remember the last time so many South Africans went "where the fuck is the President?"
Feels like this could be a legacy-defining week for Cyril Ramaphosa – one way or the other.
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Usually a bad idea to judge judges’ thinking on their questions.
But I daresay Mlambo has concerns about Zuma’s
#statecapture
conduct.
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Dlamini exchange with Budlender, under cross-examination.
Q: Can you think of anything you do [other than social grants] that affects 17 million people a month?
A: "Yes."
Q: "What is that?"
[long pause]
A: "I don't understand what it is you want me to say.”
#Sassa
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Immediate consensus is that Zuma can — and arguably should — face criminal perjury charges on
#statecapture
.
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Big blow for Dlamini in
#Sassa
inquiry: judge Ngoepe rules that her former technocrats, Zane Dangor and Thokozani Magwaza, are allowed to cross examine her.
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The Mail & Guardian declines to rate President Jacob Zuma's 2016 performance. The score sheet only goes so low.
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Zuma in Parliament: I'm gonna set up a state capture inquiry.
Zuma in court: I never said I'm going to set an inquiry.
Court: Not so fast, buddy.
#statecapture
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There can no longer be any doubt that the BLF is actually a high-concept art project.
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Seems to me
#Multichoice
is counting on its cancellation of ANN7 to turn public opinion in its favour. At bottom, words like "mistakes" and "humbled" notwithstanding, the rest is all self-justification.
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Dlamini: before October 2016 nobody ever told me
#Sassa
might miss the 1 April 2017 deadline to regularise grant payments.
Freedom Under Law: Here is a letter that told you so in September. Did you get it this letter?
Dlamini: Yes.
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If Mkhwebane is soft on Zuma, her advocate didn’t get the memo.
Maleka says “any responsible President” would have acted on
#statecapture
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The food-delivery ban just doesn't make sense - and nobody in government seems able to explain it.
Amid govt infighting, SA becomes one of the only countries to ban food deliveries:
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ANN7 has stopped running its graphic from this morning that showed how NDZ would win by a healthy margin.
#ANC54
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Social development minister Bathabile Dlamini, asked to confirm a meeting happened:
“Maybe we need to define the meaning of ‘meeting’”
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After nearly six years with the Mail & Guardian I'll be leaving at the end of January. Next stop: the brand new Business Insider South Africa.
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MK Inkululeko came to protest at the M&G with professional posters - but before reading the amaB website where sponsors are disclosed.
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That's a 22% headcount reduction in cabinet ministers. Not bad. If it were corporate retrenchments, we'd be talking in terms such as "brutal" and "bloodbath".
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A number of things have to happen almost simultaneously now.
But for starters someone had better get Acting President Cyril Ramaphosa a copy of the budget speech, a red pen, and a helluva lot of coffee.
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Wow. Gupta companies have failed in their application — and last
#GuptaBank
standing, Bank of Baroda can close their accounts.
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Suddenly seeing a lot of chatter about how the Western Cape only looks bad because of high rates of testing.
I really can't be bothered to untangle the politics behind that, but here's the proportion of Covid-19 deaths:
WC - 49%
KZN - 25%
EC - 11%
GP - 9%
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Watching Khomotso Phahlane explain how a legal march is illegal is awfully reminiscent of that Nkandla firepool presentation, innit?
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Absa's Marcus on Busisiwe Mkhwebane's approach to
#Ciex
litigation:
“It is difficult to be polite about what the Public Protector has done here. If this were a first year university student they would be disciplined for plagiarism.”
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"You know the saying that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels? Well, in South Africa, if you really need somewhere to hide, it’s not in patriotism but in race politics."
- Lesetja Kganyago, in a lecture in Washington yesterday.
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And, if you are counting, it has been 406 days since Shaun Abrahams told us “the days of disrespecting the NPA are over”.
#Nxasana
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Bathabile Dlamini enters
#Sassa
enquiry — with her interpreter. She will not be providing evidence in English.
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If you read only one Mandela obituary, make it the one by Desmond Tutu:
http://t.co/9vnz9MY4Y6
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For later reference:
“I don’t have any relationship with the Guptas.”
-- Faith Muthambi, 14 December 2016, to Parliament, under oath.
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#Statecapture
legal teams have swelled; now 19 advocates arguing before 3 judges — about an enquiry Zuma has said he actually wants.
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The Slow Torture of Bathabile Dlamini, Day 3. The smart money says Freedom Under Law will wrap up by lunch or before -- leaving the minister to face advocates for her former DG and
#Sassa
CEO this PM. Both are pissed, both know where the bodies are buried.
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15 hours before it was due, Eskom postpones its annual results announcement – “until further notice”.
Gonna be one helluva news week.
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Dlamini: nobody ever complained about my work streams working in parallel to
#Sassa
and causing trouble.
FUL: Here is an email from your DG complaining about "parallel documents" from work streams causing trouble. Did you get it?
Dlamini: Yes.
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Seena Yacoob's cross examination of Dlamini does not make for fireworks, or easy tweets. She's tightening the noose by infinitesimal increments, putting contradiction after contradiction on the record in such a gentle and non-confrontational matter you hardly even notice.
#Sassa
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It's not news that
#BusisiweMkhwebane
is, at best, incompetent.
What jumps out of the Absa/Bankorp Concourt judgment instead is how the Chief Justice (+1) and the majority flatly disagree about what happened when she tried to change the Reserve Bank mandate.
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So many people shout about the Reserve Bank all year long. Then comes the AGM -- to which you can buy guaranteed access for R100 or less -- and there are more empty chairs than full.
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It's been a day and I am still flabbergasted that the Public Protector believes the problem was not that she decided she literally knew better than the Constitution, but only that she accidentally tried to rewrite it unilaterally with bad phrasing.
PP: In addition, I conceded that, in hindsight, the remedial action relating to the mandate of the Central Bank could have been phrased differently so as to not come across as dictating terms to Parliament in contravention of the trias politica doctrine.
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We know the SABC is broke, but please can that news team get a bonus?
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“Anoj Singh is in big trouble” seems something of an understatement.
At a minimum his passport should be yanked.
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We have a working theory on why the Public Protector decided to rewrite the Constitution. It’s not good.
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Wow. Opposition political parties win their
#StateCapture
applications with costs. Des van Rooyen is thrown out — also with costs.
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Gupta companies claimed if Baroda closes accounts, staff can't be paid.
Judge Fabricius calls bullshit.
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Today + 30 days = Friday, 12 January 2018
That is now the deadline for Jacob Zuma to set up a
#StateCapture
commission of inquiry.
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Bathabile Dlamini: responsible for a national crisis, completely incapable – and now in charge of fighting the patriarchy.
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Sanity at last.
All hail the Constitutional Court and its armed wing, the panel of experts, who forced this through despite Sassa's best efforts at obstruction.
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Yoh, Trengove, for Freedom Under Law, is not pulling punches.
On NPA and Zuma's conduct, says they “seemingly for 8 years worked together to defeat the attempt to reinstate the prosecution against the President.”
#Nxasana
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Jacob Zuma basically responsible for the formation of Cope and the EFF, he was the main reason for the split in Cosatu, and he stood by as the SACP distanced itself from the alliance.
Now he'll try to divide the ANC one last time.
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Say what you will about
@MzwaneleManyi
, but he's efficient. Most new parties have to go through a tedious honeymoon phase before getting to the internal dissent and legal action. He got there in a day.
#Manyi
JUST IN Mzwanele Manyi says he is planning shutting down AADC today, to sue Edward Mokomele who claims Manyi blindsided them when he joined ATM yesterday.
Manyi says AADC is his organisation and no one else can claim to represent it. BD
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Just in: the labour court has told
#BrianMolefe
to bugger off until the high court has heard his complicated employment case.
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So yes,
#Multichoice
made it a condition precedent that the SABC must oppose terrestrial encryption in order to receive a big bag of money. After which "the SABC decided of its own accord that it accepts the provision".
But Mawela is baffled that this is an issue.
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Bloody hell. This just out from the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
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We do not yet know (and won't for some time) just what President Jacob Zuma's two personal
#statecapture
cost orders will amount to, but there is informed speculation he could yet look back fondly on the days he only had to pay for Nkandla.
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And that sound you may have heard just was a collective sigh of deep satisfaction by every technocrat who has ever been screwed over by a political principal and could do nothing about it.
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Now the paywall is down, forget
#statecapture
and CIEX. /This/ is the most interesting court case in SA right now.
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Zuma wants the finance minister to help determine his
#Nkandla
bill. Zuma wanted Des van Rooyen to be finance minister. Coincidence?
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Treasury is “surprised” at Eskom. Eskom is “shocked” by Treasury. Zuma never knew about Nkandla. Don’t any of these people read newspapers?
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So obvious now that
@tim_cohen
has pointed it out:
@Mngxitama
is Eugene Terre'Blanche, his BLF is the new AWB. Uncanny resemblance indeed.
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Concourt tells Sassa to come in for a nice little chat on 15 March. Well played, Black Sash.
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Odd to be in a court where Public Protector and DA are joining forces vs Zuma, on same day PP is accused of conspiring with Zuma in
#CIEX
.
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It's been a long time since I've heard journalists shout at the TV like this. Pray Jacob Zuma actually abandons his testimony, because at this speed he is going to give someone a stroke from sheer, impotent rage.
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9:30AM: Bathabile Dlamini objects to her treatment as a witness, and
"one question being put forward in a different way which keeps me answering".
She has about five more hours of questioning ahead of her today. The difficult questions haven't started yet.
#Sassa
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What Tiger Brands knew 18 days ago is going to become central very quickly.
The families of 180 dead people may or may not get justice – but investors are going to want scalps.
Tiger Brands' R2.2 billion processed meat business catches fire as listeriosis is traced to its Polokwane facility
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Mkhwebane 2017: don't read provisional reports because those implicated haven't had a fair hearing yet.
Mkhwebane 2019: read this provisional report – which still carries a do-not-disseminate warning in red capital letters – because I think it exculpates me.
READ: Estina Dairy Farm Project provisional report dated November 2014. It contains no findings against any politician as no investigation was carried out against politicians. It directs the Premier to take action against the HOD and CFO.
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Bathabile Dlamini is astonishingly evasive. Even for a politician. It is actually hard to capture just how evasive.
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As Parliament has taught us, you can ask questions, and get answers, and still be none the wiser.
‘Cigarettes are not banned forever’: Ramaphosa, in full, on the tobacco prohibition
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A "prophet" and a former President, both issuing demands before they will cooperate with society's fact-finding apparatus.
Power will go to your head, no matter its form.
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Looks like
@ThuliMadonsela3
is working hard not to seem triumphant at this judgment. Which is an unequivocal endorsement of her work.
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That bombshell: Absa submits that Busisiwe Mkhwebane wrote an affidavit so deceitful that it misled her own advocate, Paul Kennedy SC, and a team of four more advocates.
Because, Absa advocate Gilbert Marcus is at pains to stress, those advocates would never lie to the court.
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That the Chief Justice just breezily ignores this is scary as hell in our current political context, to me far scarier than a Public Protector with ever-shifting stories on why she can't do her job properly.
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He walked away from a rape allegation. He blatantly pillaged. It really looked like he would go down for tax.
But in the end, it was contempt that got Jacob Zuma.
How very in keeping with this "bet you didn't see *that* one coming" epoch.
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President Jacob Zuma has just abandoned his proposal that
#statecapture
should go back to the public protector for further investigation.
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Joke or no,
#ThingsMmusiDid
had me doubting my recollection. So I went back to the tape. This is what Maimane said.
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You can slice the per-hundred-thousand testing data any way you want, dead bodies say the Western Cape has a serious SARS-CoV-2 problem, and may require more stringent measures than other provinces.
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Yip. Budlender suggests social dev. minister Bathabile Dlamini should explain why she is not /personally/ liable for
#Sassa
legal costs.
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Approximately four minutes into cross-examination on
#Sassa
, social development minister Bathabile Dlamini contradicted her previous written statement (both under oath) -- on what Sassa's core job was in 2016.
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The Western Cape High Court has been reading a lot of thrillers during lockdown. And it is certainly making for more readable judgments.
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It is 4PM on Monday, 13 March. The SA Social Security Agency has failed to answer crucial questions put to it by the Constitutional Court.
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Related: is it possible to claim workers compensation for popping several arteries in a desperate attempt to hold back laughter?
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Cyril Ramaphosa is not making it easy to take seriously his commitment to jobs and small business.
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What fresh hell is this? Begone, rainbowism - and bring back my third black wine gum!
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When Zuma’s lawyer admitted the state had tapped
@SamSoleZA
, shit started to get real — for the surveillance state.
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I estimate that, should the entire food supply chain collapse today, the calories available in the Easter Eggs stacked to the rafters in every store could keep SA going for five to seven years.
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Mhkize: “Every single South African now needs to focus on adhering to recommendations pertaining to non-pharmaceutical interventions.”
Also Mkhize: We can't trust you with the recommendations we use to come up with our "recommendations", just do as you are told.
Mkhize doubles down on keeping advice secret as scientists push for transparency
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Black Sash: Three officials say you ran the work streams.
Dlamini: That is not true.
Black Sash: Let us show you 10 official documents that support what they say.
[8 documents later]
Dlamini: “I think the whole exercise is becoming too technical.”
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Oh, if anyone has trouble finding a lawyer today to help with a section 204 immunity-for-testimony deal, get in touch. We can hook you up.
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Diplomatic relations with the new French administration off to a great start.
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M&G editorial position on a secret ballot for the Zuma no-confidence vote: just don't do it.
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We're back into the Busisiwe Mkhwebane bashing in
#Ciex
. My favourite line so far today, from David Unterhalter, for the Reserve Bank: the Public Protector was “much attracted by exotic theories” about central banking.
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3-3 in the top 6 of the ANC. If the NEC split is similar we're in for five solid years of paralysis.
If we're lucky.
#ANC54
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Yet, by my rough count, Yacoob has already established half a dozen points just this morning where hard evidence suggests Dlamini misled the Constitutional Court (and the country), and perjured herself.
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We've been trying. How we have been trying. They tell us you said they shouldn't talk to us.
Could you perhaps rescind that instruction first, /then/ issue this challenge? That would help tremendously.
We challenge the media to make use of virologists, clinicians and other health professionals to give lectures, presentations and interviews to spread the correct information on
#Covid19SA
#ZweliMkhize
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A historic moment. Former
#Sassa
CEO Thokozani Magwaza has been sworn in so he can testify against his former political head, who he says lied under oath. If it goes the way Magwaza hopes, it will be Revenge Of The Technocrats, Part I.
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For instance, if Zuma tried to fire Ramaphosa now, there could well be an interdict to stop him — on the basis that Zuma would be interfering with his own possible prosecution by appointing the person who must appoint his prosecutor.
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These are the 25 South African media outlets getting money from the Google News Initiative Journalism Emergency Relief Fund.
Notice anything interesting?
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I do a lot of online shopping. A /lot/. I've shipped in stuff from four continents, from sellers ranging from giants to one-man shows.
Only two merchants have ever failed me: Pick 'n Pay, and now Woolworths.
They are also the only real-world retailers I've dealt with online.
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Mogoeng +1: Mkhwebane trying to rewrite the Constitution was so obviously bullshit that it affected nothing; smart people wouldn't have taken it seriously.
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This is, of course, not unexpected. But delivering application for leave to appeal within seven hours of judgment is startlingly efficient.
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