Consider yourself disengaged

There was a time when Hogarth’s colleagues in the newsroom referred to Derek Hanekom as being in the president’s inner circle. No more, it would seem. The Prez and his ANC entourage were scheduled to have “an engagement” with civil society in the Johannesburg CBD yesterday. This “sectoral engagement,” said the ANC in a social media statement, “will cement the ANC’s collaborative and multisectoral approach to resolving socioeconomic and political challenges ...” Responded Hanekom in an anguished tweet: “But civil society organisations that I know, including the Ahmed Foundation (which I chair), know absolutely nothing about this.” Perhaps it’s time Hanekom found new friends.