OFFICIALESE
LOOK
LIKE ME
The minister made this racist comment in May 2005 towards the end of the debate on the Department of Communications' 2005 budget vote before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications when she was outlining why VANS would not be allowed to self-provision. Her comment left committee members, including those of her own African National Congress party, stunned. - Sunday
Times 2005-05-29
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ARITHMETIC
NOT HER STRONG POINT
![]() But the realism was unfortunately replaced by the usual grandiose and impractical promise when the speech was corrected to read “eradicating a minimum of 100 million slum households”. - Sunday
Times 2005-05-29
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"I
do not wish to use the word 'retrenchments', as it upsets the trade unions.
I would rather call it 'a loss of work opportunities'. It, however, remains
the only way out".
-
Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, minister of the Public Service and Administration,
at the Public Service Jobs Summit in Pietersburg in January 2001, announcing
a reduction in the number of civil service positions in an effort to reduce
the enormous civil service salary bill and to stop the bulk of the national
budget going on public servants' salaries rather than on servies and capital
projects.. The trade unions eventually signed a document in which the word
"retrenchments" had been replaced with the phrase "retaining quality jobs",
effectively setting up low-level employees for the chop.
LOVERBOY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR
She
is described as “Her Holiness the Mayor of Cape Town” in the National
Catholic Reporter, despite being divorced. However, Nomaindia Mfeketo,
ANC mayor and member of the SA Communist Party, seems to have had a run
of bad luck with her own city’s traffic authorities. Not only did she commit
two traffic offences for which she has not paid up, but her former lover
committed three more in a car registered in her name. That is not to mention
the eight offences committed by her driver in the mayoral car during the
past year alone.
The offences have led
to three warrants for her arrest and two undelivered summonses for which
she is inexplicably listed as “untraceable”.
Mfeketo, who claims she
has secured an agreement with the traffic department that she is not responsible
for her former lover’s fines and says she has nor received the others,
has finally discovered what ordinary citizens have known for years – the
city’s traffic department is in a mess. How unfortunate to discover this
at the end of her term of office.
Mfeketo was awarded an
honorary doctorate by the University of Cape Town.
She was replaced as mayor
of Cape Town when the ANC lost the municipal elections in Cape Town in
November 2000.
WHAT'S IN A WORD?
The Black Lawyers Association
and the Association of Black Accountants graduated from the league of "complainants"
to being "requesters".
The two orgainsations
laid the original complaint that led to the SA Human Rights Commission's
probe
into racism in the media. But it seems the commission and the two organisations
are now not happy with the tag of "complainants".
Commission Chairperson
Barney Pityana pleaded with the media, after release of the Commissions
report on their investigation into the media, to stop referring to
the two organisations as "complainants" and instead call them "requesters"
as they had "requested" the investigation.
NARROW ESCAPE
The National Union of
Metalworkers of Soluth Africa's leadership nearly had a revolution on its
hands during its congress in Mafikeng, North West, during the last week
of August 2000.
Amid all the rhetoric
about building socialism and strengthening the SA Communist Party, one
of the leaders took the podium to announce the presence of
"a comrade from the IMF" in the hall.
Confused workers failed
to understand what a representative of a "class enemy", the IMF (International
Monetary Fund), was doing in their midst. It later transpired the comrade
was an observer from the International Metalworkers Federation, to which
Numsa is Affiliated.
EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS IN THE S.A. ARMY
Ms Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, Deputy Minister of Defence, personally interfered after five army officers - four lieutenant-colonels and a colonel who was the commander-designate of a medical unit - were informed that they were not allowed to continue with and complete a course of the SA Military Medical Services. Their average performances of between 6% and 9% in their operational tasks and examinations were well below the required pass rate. Madlala-Routledge insisted that they be allowed to continue with the course.
LEGALESE
Typewritten
court records in Venda are sometimes so incomprehensible that criminals
have had to be set free on appeal.
According
to a former acting judge at the Venda Hight Court, Khami Makhafola, when
some cases come from a Magistrate's Court on appeal, the record is just
gibberish - or so incomplete that no sense can be made of it.
Makhafola
gave this information to a Judicial Service Commission meeting in Pretoria
in April 2000 when he was interviewed for a permanent post on the Bench.
In
one judgement by Makhafola, for example, the official record quotes him
as saying:
In another, he is quoted as saying:
Makhafola,
an advocate in Thoyandou, appears frequently in the Venda High Court. He
and other candidates for the two Venda vacancies told the commission of
a number of problems experienced in the local High Courth, where there
had been no permanent judge since 1994. They said the courts were underresourced
and that, among other problems, acting judges did not see their judgments
after they were typed up. This meant they could not revise or correct them
before adding their signature.
The
Minister of Justice, Penuell Maduna, said after the interviews that he
had had no idea that the problems at the Venda High Court were so acute.
"The
typed reports we saw were nothing short of atrocious. I will be investigating
how [the company which does the typing] has kept the contract when its
product is so poor".
In
April lawyer Mojanku Gumbi, in Deputy President Thabo Mbeki's office, exonerated
dr Allan Boesak in a government inquiry of all charges of misappropriating
foreign aid funds. This was after complaints by the Nordic donors that
R1 million of their funding had been misappropriated by Dr Boesak's Floundation
for Peace and Justice. Presidential aide Essop Pahad took it on himself
to publicly defend Gumbi's ill-considered report when it was criticised.
President
Mandela said after the release of Gumbi's report that Dr Boesak deserved
a high diplomatic post.
"Allan Boesak is one
of the most gifted men in this country. I am very happy he had been cleared",
Mandela said.
Meanwhile, it took 11
months for the Office for Serious Economic Offences (OSEO) to complete
its own investigation of the allegations. In the meantime Dr Boesak relocated
to the US and returned to work in the ministry.
A further 11 months after
release of the OSEO report, the Attorney-General's office reached its own
conclusion, namely to charge Dr Boesak in the Cape Town Supreme Court with
the theft of R1,05 million of foreign aid. The police probe was requested
by trustees of the Children's Trust Fund, then Anglican Archbishop Desmond
Tutu and former president of the Black Sash Mary Burton.
Onhis return from the
US in March 1997, Boesak was cheered at Cape Town International Airport
by ANC leaders, among them Justice Minister Dullah
Omar. Omar later described Boesak's irregular financial dealings as
"struggle bookkeeping".
On March 17th, 1999 Boesak
was convicted of stealing R1,3 million in donor funds and fraud and sentenced
to six years imprisonment. The fraud charge related to a R682 621 donation
from rock star Paul Simon, of which Boesak only informed the trustees of
the now-defunct Foundation for Peace and Justice of R423 000. He was the
director of the FPJ.
"I am absolutely innocent",
Boesak announced in March 1999.
Whilst awaiting his appeal,
Boesak was a guest of honour at the inauguration of Pres Thabo Mbeki in
Pretoria three months later.
In
May 2000 Boesak lost his appeal against his conviction of fraud, theft
and the misappropritaion of trust funds in the Supreme Court of Appeal
in Bloemfontein. This reduced the six-year sentence handed down by the
Cape Town High Court to three years. In November 2000, an illegal cellphone
was found in his cell in the Malmesbury jail, allowing Boesak to communicate
with the outside world at will from jail. He flatly denied ever having
used the cellphone. However, in February 2001 the cellphone service provider
announced that 47 telephone calls were made from the cellphone, 21 of which
to Boesak's wife Elna. The cellphone was found to be stolen in October
2000 from an employee of Executel, a Cape Town cellphone company. It is
unknown how it found it's way to Boesak's cell in jail. Other illegal phonecalls
were made by Boesak to Dullah Omar (Minister
of Transport) who were "quite pleased" about it, Mcebisi Skwatsha (Provincial
secretary of the ANC in the Western Cape), Ebrahim Rasool (Western Cape
ANC leader) Rev Frank Chikane (Director-General in the office of the State
President), Charles Nqakula (Deputy Minister of Home Affairs), and Archbishop
Winston Ndungane of Cape Town.
In May 2001 Adv Frank
Kahn, provincial director of public prosecutions, decided not to prosecute
Boesak for the stolen cellphone found in his cell. "In the light of Boesak's
denial under oath that he did not use the cellphone - despite evidence
to the contrary - I have decided not to institute criminal prosecution
against him".
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APARTHEID LAWS ARE ALIVE
Residents of Ingwavuma wanted to hold a public meeting to discuss the appointment of a local chief, Mndeni Mngomezulu, about which they were dissatisfied. The local magistrate PZ Xulu refused to give permission for a meeting, using an apartheid-era proclamation dating from 1968 which specifies that anyone who holds or addresses a meeting "at which more than 10 blacks are present", without special permission, is guilty of an offence.
MAYORAL ALLOWANCES
Mr Elias Mkhize, ANC mayor
of the Durban southern substructure during 1996, sent his bodyguard to
collect his (Mr Mkhize's) monthly unemployment benefits. Mr Mkhize says
that, as mayor, he is technically jobless and has claim to the benefits.
All mayors of the Durban
metro-substructures receive monthly allowances of almost R14 000. Ratepayers
provide each of them with an official car, body guard and a cellphone.
His bodyguard, who went
to the front of the queue each time to collect Mr Mkhize's unemployment
benefits, has already collected R3000 on his behalf.
POLITICALLY CORRECT LANGUAGE
The Star newspaper in Johannesburg, in search for lost circulation, brought out a special edition for black readers, but doesn't want to use the "black" word. So it is relaunching zoned editions for the "former politically disenfranchised".
An announcement in Grocott's
Mail in Grahamstown during October 1996 read as follows:
"6.30 pm - Public
Lecture by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, chairman of Tutu and Reconciliation
Commission: Rhodes University Great Hall".
TELLING THE TRUTH, 2.
In Arena, the quarterly
magazine for alumni and friends of Wits University, the following sentence
appeared in an article on the history of mining:
"Almost overnight
SA became a steal producer of global significance".
COLOUR DISCRIMINATION (1)
All "grey haired men"
was asked by Public Enterprises Minister Stella Segcau to stand up at a
meeting of 120 senior managers from defence industry company Denel in 1996.
All of them were white. The minister said the next time she spoke she wanted
to see more black faces.
None of the grey-haired
officials of Denel were allowed to talk to the press about their experience,
since they require ministerial approval to do so.
COLOUR DISCRIMINATION (2)
Tennis greats attending
the SA leg of the MTN campionships in 1996 expressed a wish to meet president
Nelson Mandela during their visit to Sun City. Trying to fit in a meeting
with the busy schedule of the president was no easy task.
At last it was arranged;
the tournament organisers said that Mandela would agree to see John McEnroe
"because he refused to play tennis in South Africa during the boycott
years"; that he would see Bjorn Borg "because he's always been the
President's favourite player", and that he would see Yannick Noah "because
he's black".
LOST PROJECT
The National Assembly's
Portfolio Committee on Public Works had a spot of difficulty when it visited
the Eastern Cape. Under the heading of "Vlagstaf water project",
its annual report says: "This project could not be seen because the
officials who accompanied the delegation could not find it and the community
around Vlagstaf did not know about it".
(The report presumably
refers to Flagstaff.)
MERIT PER DEFINITION
"Merit: The definition
of 'merit' was redefined as follows:
'That the concept
of merit be redefined to mean appointing a suitable person who meets the
minimum requirements for the job and is not necessarily the most suitable
person..."
Report on the activities
of the Affirmative Action Steering Committee in the September/October 1998
internal newsletter of the Municipality of Pretoria.
EUPHEMISM
Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, discovered a suitable euphemism for "overspending"; in an economic growth document, he repeatedly refers to "governemt dissaving".
SIMPLE LANGUAGE
"There was a deadlock
and no agreement on coming up with an agreement on the national framework
agreement".
- Azanian Student's Congress
member Console Tleane, at the National Summit on Higher Education, 1996.
TELLING IT AS IT IS
The
chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission, Barney Pityana,
was asked if the commission had overspent its budget.
Pityana, who has complained
bitterly about the commission's budget, replied: "I don't think we have
overspent. We have not".
He then explained that
the commission had R5,29 million in roll-over funds for once-off capital
expenditure, but this had not yet been received despite the submission
of
receipts.
Pityana added: "Technically,
we have overspent and, in reality, we have overspent".
Now we know.
(Pityana was appointed
Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Africa in 2002)
MAKING IT CLEAR
South African Revenue
Services has issued the following statement in order to clarify the situation
with regard to VAT:
"The recipient of
a supply of goods or services who accounts for VAT on the invoice basis
and has claimed an input tax deduction in relation thereto but has not
yet paid the full consideration charged in respect thereof after a period
of 36 months has lapsed is still liable to account for output tax equal
to the tax fraction (at present 14/114) of the amount still outstanding".
THE PEST AMONGST US
Officials of the Department
of Trade and Industry in Pretoria received a notice warning of plans to
spray their building with isecticide. The notice was headed "Spraying
of the Pests in the Offices", and began:
"We would like to
bring this to the notice of all staff members that your officers [sic]
will be sprayed with the prest insecticides". It concluded: "We
request your co-operation by means of taking out the security locks in
your doors".
The next day a second
notice was distributed, offering "formal apology to any officers who
might feel that they have been insulted or affronted by the wording used
in the previous message".
NEW S.A. DICTIONARY
Struggle
bookkeeping: the term used by Justice Minister Dullah Omar to explain
the more than R1 million of Scandinavian donations which Rev Allan Boesak
could not account for in the books of the Foundation for Peace and Justice.
Temporary
use of public money: the term used by Independent Broadcasting Authority's
(former) councillor Lyndall Shope-Mafole to explain the use of her corporate
credit card for private shopping expenses
Eileen kaNkosi-Shandu,
Minister of Education and Culture in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government,
appointed her brother Isaac Nkosi to the second-highest position in her
department - even though his highest qualification is a matric pass.
Nkosi was appointed as
the new deputy director-general of administration in the province's largest
government department - defeating six other candidates, one with an MBA
degree.
Nkosi was among the department's
senior officials who were severely criticised after the province's poor
performance in last year's matric exams.
Shandu's spokesman, Mandla
Msibi, said he could not comment on Nkosi's qualification as he did not
have his CV.
Bheki Khumalo, spokesman
for the national Minister of Education, Mr Kader Asmal, said he could not
comment.
Nkosi refused to comment
and referred inquiries to Msibi.
After "failing to listen"
to Kwazulu-Natal's premier Lionel Mtshali's "wise counsel" and reverse
the appointment, Shandu was dismissed as MEC in August 2000.
HUMPING
ANC intellectual Pallo Jordan found his intellect sorely taxed early in July 2000 when he faced parliamentary journalists who demanded translations of the supposed English used in three of the party's policy documents. Pallo blamed it on the drafting committees, quoting the hairy old chestnut, that "a camel is a horse designed by a committee". An example of the language used in the documents:
"The ANC also learnt to identify and seize decisive moments. Thus it had to temper impatience during periods of quantitative accumulation of conditions and factors and to impel decisive action when the combined elements of qualitative movement forward were evident."