SHOCKER: IEC Used Unregistered Celebs To Urge You To Register To Vote

Some mistakes we make in this country are so elementary it makes one just wonder if the concept of competence is a foreign notion to us South Africans. City Press reports that a few celebs featured on the IEC's IxSA campaign which featured prominently on our TV screen in the days leading to the last voters registration drive last week are not registered to vote. Seriously? 

Ok, I know as TV and Entertainment industry critics we are lambasted often for only looking for the negative to report. However, you have to admit that the mediocrity that reigns in this industry and the country at large warrants this sort of pessimistic reporting. 

How in the world do you expect critics, journalists, commentators and the public not to criticize when people entrusted with making big decisions about the industry and the country just can not be bothered to do due diligence whenever they are tasked with doing something. 

Turns out, as City Press reports,  using the IEC’s SMS service for verifying voters’ registration status City Press’ sister paper, Rapport, discovered that hip hop star Kuli Chana and Vuzu presenter Siyabonga Ngwekazi were not registered to vote. 

Kuli Chana, real name Khulane Morule, only registered to vote when he was queried about the matter. 

How do you pay people to do a campaign urging people to do something they are not prepared to do themselves?

Why didn't anyone from IEC check if the stars had registered before hiring them? Did they even care?

Chana's publicist Sheira Afari later said to City Press: 

“He was on the Kendrick Lamar tour last weekend and thus missed the voting registration deadline. It was not and is not any intention of his not to vote.”

As for the IEC; Marco Granelli, the IEC’s communications head, said Ngwekazi and Morule were contacted after the issue was brought to the commission’s attention.

“We did not check the celebrities’ registration status. There was an understanding they would be registered by the second registration weekend.”

Another issue of contention was the fact that Jonathan “Ziyon” Hamilton of Liquideep is not a South African citizen, therefore he can not vote. 

On Ziyon's issue, his manger is quoted as having said; “Both his parents are citizens and he is in the process of becoming a citizen,”

Yah ne? some mickey mouse country we live in. How are we supposed to take these institutions seriously.

Great work on City Press and Rapport for exposes this travesty. Sies maan.