Dismay hit Parliament this week when it was discovered the new access cards featured the national emblem, not the honoured institution’s own coat of arms.
The mistake was only picked up after several hundred of the new Big Brother cards – equipped with microchips that set off alarms when MPs, staff or hacks venture into unauthorised areas – were issued. Staff were asked to return the cards in what has become another delay in the implementation of the multimillion-rand access security system.
Some saw this hiccup as proof of what cynics have been saying about the blurring of the separation of powers between the executive and the legislators in Parliament.
Lemmer wonders how Madam Speaker feels – she had promised the institution of Parliament would be strengthened this year.
Indian summer
As you might expect, the manne at the Dorsbult Bar are not great admirers of Bob Mugabe and his merry band of henchmen. They are interested to learn that Zanu (Paranoid Fruitcake) is now turning its sights on Zim’s 20 000 citizens of Asian origin. Elliott Manyika, Zanu national political commissar and governor of Mashonaland central, says a politburo meeting agreed to target white- and Asian-owned companies once the commercial farming sector is ”finalised”.
Claims ruling party rag the Zimbabwe Mirror: ”Asians, commonly referred to as Indians, would not be spared, for what is said to be their role in the hoarding of essential commodities.”
The manne would be interested to know what that prominent South African of Asian origin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad, thinks about these utterances, which ominously recall Uganda’s Idi Amin.
The manne learn with some dismay that Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi is again being hounded by disrespectful journalists who insist on calling him Gatsha. In a brief note (by his standards) to this newspaper, the honourable minister explains why he dislikes the casual use of this pet name given him by his grandmother. He suggests alternatives such as ”Shenge” or, rather obviously, his given name Mangosuthu.
With deep respect, the manne believe he has tried this tack before with little success. Lemmer would like to suggest that the Inkatha leader take a leaf out of another prince’s book and come up with something completely different.
We refer, of course, to the musician Prince, who -after a dispute with his record company – decided to change his name to an incomprehensible and unpronounceable symbol. As the symbol did not appear on too many typewriter keyboards, he was referred to in print as the ”Artist Formerly Known as Prince”. Perhaps the minister could become the ”Prince Formerly Known as Gatsha” (Prifkag), or something more catchy.
Suggestions on a postcard to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Not as it used to be
The honourable minister’s role in the apartheid struggle is also much broader than we originally thought. Lionel Mtshali, national chairperson of the Inkatha Freedom Party, gave a rather unusual version of recent South African history in a letter to Business Day this week: ”[IFP leader Mangosuthu] Buthelezi never worked closely with apartheid and, in fact, former president FW de Klerk and many apartheid hierarchs openly recognised that it was exclusively Buthelezi’s defiance which forced apartheid to collapse.”
Inspired
The suggestion last week by Evita Bezuidenhout that the citizens of Limpopo (the province formerly known as Northern) be called Limpopols, caused several readers to share their ideas with Oom Krisjan. A gentleman from the visdorpie said it was ironic that Limpopo was the name chosen, as it was a colonial bastardisation of the name of the Lebombo (but the manne are not sure whether this is correct as our source believes the province being renamed is North West). To continue the river theme, another says that in the land of the piesang the people formerly known as Valies are called Guppies, for their GP numberplates.
Freedom in Potch
The Australian cricket team was given the freedom of Potchefstroom during their tour-opening three-day match against South Africa A. The Aussies will be based in Potch for the World Cup and have taken the precaution of booking out the Willows hotel, where they stayed last month.
This may turn out to be a prescient move, for the hotel that housed their South African opponents (the Elgro) was not quite of the same standard. It seems that the North West police department chose the same week to mount a crime offensive in the city and on the Monday 90 of them stayed in the same hotel as the South African cricketers.
The next morning hotel residents were incensed about the noise in the night and the sight of prostitutes running up and down the corridors bestowing favours. The hotel manager apologised, but explained that it was difficult to report the situation to the police as it was they who were causing it.
Maybe a restless night would explain the A team’s less than convincing batting display the next day.
Doomed
The management at Johnnic Publishing are tired of all this doom and gloom in their newspapers. They have instructed sub-editors on the Sunday Times to accentuate the good news in the self-proclaimed ”Paper for the People”. Some might see it as giving the people (and the president) what they want to read, but Oom Krisjan believes it is just a twist on the old line. Subs mustn’t let the facts get in the way of a positive headline.
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