Russian president Vladimir Putin. Photo: Supplied
Like many of my fellow South Africans, I’m also wondering if the move back to stage four of load shedding today is an indication that the honeymoon is over for our brand new minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramakgopa – and the rest of us.
The few weeks of close to uninterrupted electricity supply that came after Eskom chief executive officer André de Donker got the boot were a lovely gift from Ramakgopa, the national umkhwenyana, to mark his arrival in the family.
Sadly, as is the case with all post nuptial vacations, indications are that our heady days of lights and roses may be rapidly coming to an end, and that, like honeymooners, the dreaded return to the real world awaits us.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson and economic development MEC Siboniso Duma, took time off from man marking premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube on Wednesday to hand out kettles and two-plate stoves to two residents whose homes had recently been electrified, is among those hoping Ramakgopa can keep the lights on.
So are the comrades in Mangaung, who must be terrified that the move to stage four may become a permanent one.
They need power to keep the polygraphs running while they work out who among them voted for the Democratic Alliance’s Maryke Davies as speaker on Wednesday.
Some of the comrades voted against the party line and now the ANC in the Free State capital has apparently asked ActionSA for contacts for the company which polygraphed their City of Tshwane councillors for voting against the party line in Tshwane earlier this month.
Perhaps the ANC — or ActionSA — will ask Russian president Vladimir Putin to bring a crate of lie detectors with him when he comes to Mzansi in August.
I’m unbothered by all the fuss over the impending visit to our fine Republic by Vlad The Invader and whether or not the South African Police Service (SAPS) will effect the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the “military operation” in Ukraine.
Whether or not our government decides to arrest Putin when he arrives for the Brics summit in August is, from where most of us sit, pretty much academic, given the lack of ability of the police to do their job.
It’s not just the fact that our leaders ignored the ICC arrest warrant issued for Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2015 during an African Union summit held in South Africa on the grounds that we had no obligation to arrest the head of a country which is not a signatory to the ICC.
Russia — like the United States of America — is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, so Putin is more likely to be welcomed with a bouquet of Proteas than leg irons when he touches down at Waterkloof.
Even if the government were to give the go ahead to the cops to pick up Putin, my Roubles are on them getting things wrong.
After all, their minister, Bheki Cele, and their commissioner, Fannie Masemola, spent 20 March staring at a hole in Nhlanhla “Lux” Dlamini’s front garden, while escaped murderer, rapist and con artist Thabo Bester did another disappearing act, this time from the mansion he had occupied since he was helped to escape from prison last year.
South Africa’s list of unsolved murders — high profile and otherwise — is as lengthy as it is terrifying, so Putin probably has less chance of getting arrested and hauled off to the Hague to face trial for war crimes if he comes here than he has at home in Moscow.
It’s been more than 10 years — and three changes of residence — since my flat was burgled, and I’m still waiting for the cops to come and take fingerprints, so the chances of them cuffing Putin and reading him his rights during his time in Mzansi are pretty slim, even if Pretoria were to instruct them to do so.
Bad Vlad will already have stocked up at duty free and will be Aerofloting his way home by the time our bunglers in blue manage to find a van with petrol to go and pick him up, so I don’t imagine any rendition on the runway; no capture at the conference centre.
One can picture the minister of tyres, all hat and excuses, mouthing empty platitudes and promises of speedy intervention at yet another crime scene press conference, this time on the Waterkloof runway, days after the bird has, literally, flown.
Servamus.
And, of course, as a former intelligence operative — and a repeat visitor to Mzansi — Putin will be sure to have some cold drink money for the constabulary in his top pocket.
Just in case.