COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has been using every available platform to rant and rave about political predators and hyenas that have, he claims, taken control of the state to advance their own "dirty agendas".

He has warned that if nothing is done to stem this predatory behaviour, corruption will be made to look like a normal activity in Mzansi.

But the people at whom this invective is aimed do not take him seriously because the platforms he uses to rat at them are not recognised formal institutions.

Now Guluva is pleased to inform Vavi that there is, in fact, such a platform. It is called the Predation Management Forum, headed by one Petrus de Wet.

The forum came into the limelight this week when it made a submission in Parliament about how jackals, which incidentally belong to the same family as hyenas, were, to quote a SA Press Association news report, "literally tearing the guts out of SA's multi-billion rand sheep and goat farming sector".

De Wet told visibly shaken MPs that the attacks by jackals and caracals had escalated "beyond control" and warned that if the problem persisted the country's small stock industry "will be extinct within five to 10 years".

The figures he produced were equally alarming. Losses to predators in 2010 amounted to R1,3billion, up from the previous year's figure of R1,1billion. In 1990, De Wet revealed, the industry produced 103million kg of wool. But because of these predatory tendencies, the figure has since dipped to 48million kg.

"If we look at the mohair industry, a big earner of foreign capital for South Africa, there used to be 10,1million kg in 1990; we're down to 2,6million kg this year," De Wet said. Shocking statistics indeed.

De Wet and Vavi might be coming from two different perspectives, but they are talking the same language - that predators are bad news for Mzansi.

Now all Vavi has to do is use the Predation Management Forum more often to have his voice audibly heard.

Beware of lootocrats

A new word, lootocrat, silently entered the SA English language space this week.

Coined by a newspaper reader and keen observer of Mzansi's political developments, the word does not appear in any of the English dictionaries Guluva consulted. Even the Oxford South African Concise Dictionary could not shed light on it. The best the dictionaries could come up with was looter.

Seeing it is likely to take root, Guluva would like to be the first to offer its definition:

Lootocrat?noun 1. a politician with absolute power to loot state resources.

2. a political hyena or predator.

Old wine in new bottles

Guluva has been awaiting the launch of The New Age, a Gupta family funded pro-government rag, with enthusiastic expectation, more so because of the promise that it will introduce a new perspective and add to Mzansi's media diversity.

But Guluva's enthusiasm was deflated after reading the new rag's online version yesterday. He was disappointed that, of the 34 stories posted on its website, only two were written by its own reporters. The rest were from the South African Press Association and related wire service agencies.

If this can be used as a yardstick, Guluva thinks the New Rag will be nothing more than a printed version of Sapa stories or, as Vavi would say, old wine in new bottles.

Email Guluva on: thatha.guluva@gmail.com