PRETORIA. Human Settlement Minister Tokyo Sexwale has warned the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa that he will not stand by and let them nationalise his assets. But, in what is widely seen as a conciliatory gesture, he has offered to let one of their members help him spend his money.
Sexwale, who is reportedly worth more than 500 million Rands, an amount equal to the ANC Youth League’s annual budget for parties, said he had spoken to a range of stakeholders and proposed a reality television show in which he featured as a wealthy guru, helping to train youngsters in the art of profligate spending.
Sexwale’s spokesman, Lovehandles Mdingi, said the winner of the show would be offered a position in the corporate social responsibility department of Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda Group.
He said the remaining contestants would emerge from the show equipped to spend large sums of money quickly.
“They will be well suited to positions as trophy wives, police commissioners or parastatal CEOs,” said Mdingi. “Plus the show will make for great all-round family entertainment.”
Asked if the show had already been made and titled The Apprentice, Mdingi said he didn’t think so.
“It’s an original concept,” he said, “just like NUMSA’s ideas about nationalisation of assets.
“It’s a perfect marriage,” he said, “like Joost and Amor.”
Meanwhile , when asked to explain NUMSA’s position on nationalisation, spokesperson Dustbuster Mfeketo said it was a simple philosophy based on literature and linguistics.
Mfeketo said NUMSA had drawn widely on the lessons explained in Robin Hood. “It’s about stealing from the rich to give to the poor until such time that the rich are the poor and an equilibrium is reached,” he said.
He added that NUMSA also believed that anything named after a possessive pronoun, “like mine for instance,” should belong to the person or people indicated by the word.
“It’s like the seagulls in Finding Nemo,” he said, “We believe the mines our ours.”
