OPINION - While we must acknowledge that former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede is, according to the law, innocent until proven guilty, her demeanour outside court leaves much to be desired.
She claims she is innocent and is the victim of trumped-up charges brought by her enemies. It’s an excuse often used by political leaders who fail in their duties.
What about accountability, responsibility and morality? Even if she did not have her hand in the cookie jar, as the mayor of the third-largest metro in the country, she had a responsibility to the rate-paying citizens of the municipality, on whom she depended for her income, to ensure that all public funds were used for the good of the people and not for the corrupt and greedy municipal officials and tenderpreneurs.
Did Durban get a clean, unblemished audit from the Auditor-General under Gumede? Did she collude with the orange bag companies, or did she turn a blind eye to the theft of millions of rand of public funds? Didn’t she take an oath of office? Can she look the people in the eye and say “I have kept to my oath of office?”
Oh, yes she can!
Gumede says disgraced former president Jacob Zuma is her role model. No decent citizen, especially a woman, would be an admirer of a man who is a philanderer, a man whose image is in tatters.
Zuma cared not a jot about the country or the people; it was all about himself. He spent more time in court and the Gupta compound than in his office. He faces multiple counts of fraud, corruption, racket-eering and money laundering. A fine role model he makes!
Birds of a feather?
T Markandan Kloof