Perhaps eThekwini Municipal mayor Obed Mlaba had winged it into the nearby Nando’s franchise on Durban’s West Street to douse an out-of-control grill.
Or perhaps the ’emergency†was to quell a rumbling paunch made increasingly sizeable by official dinners.
Either way the Metro traffic cop dishing out fines to ordinary cars parked on a yellow line marked exclusively for bus use was convinced the mayor was on some urgent official errand.
He was studiously ignoring Mlaba’s spanking new BMW 740i, parked skew on a yellow line, which was disrupting buses trying to offload and pick up passengers.
‘He’s got an emergency parking permit — d’you know whose car that is?†the copper replied to my queries.
While no ’emergency permit†was visible on Mlaba’s shiny metallic hulk, the NDM 1 number-plate of Durban’s first citizen was clear enough.
Take a bow Mayor Mlaba — you have won this week’s George Orwell Bling Bling Prize for proving that in South Africa ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than othersâ€.
Especially after you, deputy mayor Logie Naidoo and speaker John Nxumalo, raised the ire of ratepayers by splurging R1,4-million on your new Beemers.
Meanwhile, Warren Foster reports an incident a month ago, when he received an incredulous look from the black-clad, doom-faced gentleman sitting at the wheel of the black sedan behind his baby blue Atos.
‘I noticed a blue siren waving over his head and a stream of cars battling to realign themselves after giving way. I quickly bumped my blue baby on to the curb and yielded to four vehicles whose tinted windows glared at me as they swept by.â€
Foster guiltily imagined — as per the movies — that he was obstructing a police convoy escorting a pregnant woman to hospital. Then it dawned on him that this was just another elected official irked by mid-afternoon traffic.
After the Mail & Guardian published letters from readers enraged by puffed-up officialdom, a flurry of similar reports streamed in. Here are a two more examples:
Michael de Souza, who works in the Johannesburg CBD, said he and his colleagues are frequently frustrated by the Presidential Protection Unit (PPU), a branch of the SAPS, closing off roads to usher VVVIPs into Luthuli House.
‘Guys in black BMWs with tinted windows and flashing blue lights, zoom past traffic jams in the emergency lane, elbowing people out of the way, double parking and generally acting like lawless cowboys.
‘I’ve tried to speak to plainclothes PPU members on several occasions. They threaten me, telling me that I am causing trouble for myself, and refuse to let me know who I can take the matter up with.â€
Police spokesperson Vishnu Naidoo insisted the PPU does not close off roads, but ‘provides protection in transit and close protectionâ€.
Obviously the road closures De Souza et al have experienced are an epidemic hallucination.
Another reader tells us that the mayor of the Waterberg District, PS Kekana, had blue lights attached to her new R750 000 VW Touareg V10. ‘The driver even uses the lights when the mayor is not in the car.â€
The reader emphasised that there was almost no traffic in Waterberg to shove out of the way.