How does one dry more than 300m of red carpet that has been rained on and then walked over by hundreds of MPs and dignitaries, including a president?
This was the soggy problem parliamentary staff faced on Friday after all those attending President Thabo Mbeki’s ninth State of the Nation address had left and gone home.
The official red carpet — all 320m of it, stretching from the National Assembly building along Parliament Avenue to the institution’s north gate — was rolled out shortly after 9am, despite official misgivings about the weather.
These were not misplaced. For the first time in 35 years, it rained during an opening ceremony. Staff now have 10 32m rolls of wet carpet sitting in Parliament’s basement.
A senior official who declined to be named said the sections of carpet would be unrolled in the Stal Plein basement and left over the weekend.
Asked if it would dry in time for the next state occasion, he replied: ”I don’t know … we’ll assess the situation on Monday. It’s a good job we won’t need it for the Budget [on February 21].” — Sapa