Corporate SA refuses to pay for political PR, but…Government splurges R75m on 5 000 BRICS cops…

Twelve out of thirteen big businesses turned down requests from Parliament to provide sponsorship to the ninth BRICS Parliamentary Forum held in Johannesburg last week. “It is absolutely outrageous that the incumbent government still thinks that it's appropriate to be hosting these lavish talk shops that essentially disincentivise our Western partners from investing in this country - and we see that now having a direct impact on what corporate South Africa is willing to associate themselves with,” says Emma Louise Powell, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) Shadow Minister of International Relations and Co-operations. It has also emerged that the Government spent over R75 million to deploy more than 5 000 cops to the fifteenth annual BRICS Summit in August. “…all of these foreign delegations…bring with them their own security contingent. So essentially these more than 5,000 police officers were deployed to keep our ANC…safe while people across South Africa continue to deal with rampant violence, rising crime rates and a scourge of crime that doesn't seem to be abating anytime soon,” says Powell. She also describes the “notable disinterest” from BRICS member states in the “shambolic” forum that “achieved altogether absolutely nothing”. - Chris Steyn