Idiocy is no longer the exception, it’s official policy in government

The country’s political circus is proof that, finally, there’s a project that unites us across party and racial lines.

Bhekisisa Mncube is an author and columnist who won the national 2024 Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Award for columns/editorials, as well as the same category at the regional 2020 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards.

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! There comes a point in the life of the Gupta Republic when idiocy ceases to be an unfortunate occurrence and becomes the organising principle of the state. I fear, my leader, that we have arrived.

If we were serious about transformation, we would celebrate this achievement. South Africans of every race, political persuasion and ideological disposition are participating equally in one national project: making complete fools of ourselves.

I came to this conclusion while watching (dis)Honourable Fadiel Adams, suspended Member of Parliament, appearing before the Madlanga Commission.

Comrade Leadership, I have watched commissions before. I survived Seriti. I survived Zondo. I have watched witnesses forget meetings, signatures, people, money and houses. But Adams is pioneering an entirely new branch of jurisprudence.

The man arrived promising bombs. Not hand grenades, mind you. GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator big. Thirty-thousand-­pound bunker-buster big. What followed was less Hiroshima and more Checkers Sixty­60 delivering Windhoek Light beer.

By the time the smoke cleared, the arsenal had been reduced to profuse apologies, forgotten emails, mixed-up dates and the begrudging discovery that even his own source had been wrong.

According to Adams, highly confidential Crime Intelligence documents were slipped under his parliamentary office door. So much for covert technology. Apparently, state secrets now travel like takeaway menus. Uber Eats, anyone?

Then came the Madlanga Commission. Suddenly, the parliamentary laptop was faulty. Parliament disputed his explanation. Then came confusion about who he met, and where and how they travelled to Orlando police station in Soweto.

On Friday morning, 21 August 2026, Adams returned to correct evidence he had given the previous day. He apologised and said he had been ill-prepared. My leader! Ill-­prepared? For your own evidence?

I understand being ill-prepared for algebra. I have spent my adult life ill-prepared for gym. But surely the one examination for which a man possesses the memorandum concerns his own life?

Then came the recording. Earlier, Adams wanted his January 2025 meeting with officials from the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption transcribed and placed before the commission because, he argued, it could expose inconsistencies in the evidence against him. Excellent. Play the tape.

Hhayi! By Friday, Adams was asking the commission not to play it. This is constitutional democracy as written by Leon Schuster: yesterday’s instrument of vindication becomes today’s unwanted exhibit.