Things in prison have obviously relaxed a bit since Oom Krisjan spent a few days as a guest of the government. The Department of Correctional Services is investigating how the wife of Pagad urban terror-accused Ebrahim Jenneker could be eight months pregnant even though he has been awaiting trial for more than two years. After some serious investigation (ag, all right, a phone call to the Dorsbult’s equivalent in the visdorpie), Lemmer can report the following:
It was simply a case of arranging a ”contact visit” and sending the message: ”Wear no panties, I’ll do the rest.” It seems, nogal, that like a cheated-on spouse correctional services was the last to know. Although the news was unknown to the prisons services until police pepper-sprayed Sedicka Ebrahim this week, her pregnancy was well known throughout certain circles in the visdorpie.
But Lemmer wonders about Jenneker. He’s obviously a wily customer, who has managed to escape twice from the Cape High Court besides arranging these contact visits. Both times that he eluded the long arm of the law he went straight to relatives in Athlone, where police dutifully rearrested him.
Media bomb
Little change in the murky defence industry even though transparency and accountability may be today’s buzzwords. The lady at the switchboard of Denel was obviously at a loss where to transfer enquiries for the public relations or media liaison section. First the call was put through to the photographic department, next to ”the media makers”, which turned out to be a company that produces ”products for the media”. Oom Krisjan hears other recipients of unsolicited media enquiries include Denel’s marketing department.
Flash in the pan
The South African cricket team had better keep their collective eyes on the ball when they play the might of Bangladesh in Potchefstroom this weekend. Lemmer hears that all is not so saintly in the hometown of the university for Christian Higher Education. A female rock singer by the name of Karen Zoid apparently flashed an audience at a charity concert in aid of Aids victims in the dorp.
Maybe she wanted to experience a Potchefstroom disselboom first hand …
Saving grace
Lemmer would like to congratulate colleague Charlene Smith, who has been nominated for one of the first National Aids Awards along with such luminaries as the Treatment Action Campaign’s Zackie Achmat and Aids care specialist Dr Rubin Sher. However, if it is to give her a gong, the African Heritage Foundation should perhaps reconsider its current description of her: ”journalist, rape saviour and Aids activist”.
Daily news
Oom Krisjan might be ”demented and deranged” (see Letters), but the manne still have some doubts about ThisDay — the new Nigerian-funded newspaper to be loosed on South Africa soon. A quick visit to its website, www.thisdayonline.com, deepened rather than removed our suspicions. When you click on the links ”Who are we?”, ”About ThisDay” or ”ThisDay People” it says: ”Sorry. The information you have requested is currently not available.”
Taxing questions
Every now and again a refugee from South Africa’s best-known building site, Johannesburg International airport, makes it into the Dorsbult to recover. The latest tale of woe concerns a declaration form issued by the South African Revenue Service (the taxman to you and me). It ends as follows:
”I declare that the information mentioned herein is to the best of my knowledge correct, except where I expressly indicated to the contrary.”
Hoary hairy joke
While President Thabo Mbeki was ”getting in touch with his subjects” — well, that is what an imbizo means, as he himself explained to a Stakeholders’ Forum last Friday — he tried to show that he does have a sense of humour. With a deadpan expression, he told the gathering at the outset that one particular subject was off limits. Before the audience could even register the implication of his statement, he continued: ”The hairstyle of the premier will not be discussed.” As everyone burst out laughing at the sight of Premier Mbhazima Shilowa’s gleaming dome, the subject remarked: ”I am very happy you noticed.”
But when he repeated the whole routine two days later in Bekkersdal, the joke had worn quite thin.
Baffling buckets
The manne at the bar were deeply touched by a letter sent out by the Catholic Welfare and Development agency, which is distributing what it calls ”Buckets of Love”. These are described as ”food parcels filled with staples to provide food for poor families”.
The Catholic Church probably has a glut of these little things now that its priests have been forbidden to attach themselves to children. It’s believed that next month the Vatican will be sending out containers filled with vitamin-enriched carbon paper, ballpoint pens, cardboard files, computer diskettes and any number of other nourishing office products.
Black flag
Oom Krisjan is no expert in matters of protocol, but as a patriotic South African he would like to think that for the R520-million spent on the presidential jet Inkwazi (Zulu for African fish eagle) officialdom could have at least ensured the national flag was displayed properly.
Instead, the picture from the Department of Defence featured in newspapers throughout the country shows the flag on the jet not only upside down (blue stripe at the bottom) but also back to front.
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