Former president Jacob Zuma is set to appear in the high court in Pietermaritzburg on November 30. (Rogan Ward/Reuters)
Wednesday.
It’s late morning, but it’s dead quiet outside the high court in Durban. There’s hardly a movement in Dullah Omar Road, which runs between Anton Lembede Street and Margaret Mncadi Avenue, separating the courthouse from the department of labour’s rather ironically named Durban labour centre.
There’s no queue of job-seekers outside the centre, no newly retrenched workers waiting to sign for their Unemployment Insurance Fund payouts, no pregnant women waiting to register for maternity benefits.
The labour centre was closed “temporarily” in September 2016 because its inspectors found that it did not meet its own health and safety standards — the toilets were broken. Funny, but it’s no joke for the unemployed.
Customers — as I found out last year when I got slapped with a section 189 retrenchment notice for my birthday by my then baas — were diverted to Pinetown, Isipingo or Phoenix. All three are a long haul from the city centre.
The queues at the Pinetown satellite office, which was already swamped with locals desperate for the department’s services, were insane. In addition to those referred from Durban, the centre had to deal with a flood of new retrenchments from Hammarsdale and Ntshanga, courtesy of mass layoffs at Rainbow Chickens and several textile companies. The staff were drowning in paperwork, resulting in mistakes, which meant several trips to Pinetown for me.
The toilets were pretty vile, but they worked, I guess.
Two years later, the Durban labour centre is still closed.
Perhaps two years is temporary, in department of labour terms. Perhaps the centre will remain closed. Perhaps there’s no money to fix the toilets. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of renovation going on. Then again, the larneys running the department in the province are housed in the Royal Hotel, just down the drag. They’re well sorted, whether the punters have to trek to Pinetown, Isipingo and Phoenix every six weeks or not.
Either way, two years seems a long time to fix the toilets.
I head for the registrar’s office at the high court. I’m in search of former president Jacob Zuma’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution. uBaba, as the faithful here in the Kingdom call Zuma, had his lawyers file the application last Friday while he was pressing the flesh in KwaMashu ahead of the ANC’s January 8 manifesto launch. And his appearance in the high court on Friday, November 30, on corruption and racketeering charges.
I’ve been battling unsuccessfully since Monday morning to get Daddy’s papers, which is a bit weird, given that they’re a public document.
It’s been a mission.
For some reason, the papers have apparently been filed directly to Judge Mjabuliseni Madondo, the KwaZulu-Natal deputy judge president, in Pietermaritzburg, with no copy going into the court file, as is the standard practice. As a result, there’s no copy in the registrar’s office in Pietermaritzburg, where the case is being held because of renovations at Durban’s high court. I’ve found this out the hard way.
The deputy judge president is, understandably, busy reading uBaba’s 300-odd-page affidavit and the four lever arch files of supporting documents that go with it, so I can’t really ask him to lend me his copy.
The lawyers haven’t been much help. uBaba’s legal team don’t take my calls. I don’t know whether I blame them. I’ve written some pretty rough stuff about the old-timer over the years. Perhaps I’ve been shit-listed.
Perhaps.
I’ve also hit a wall with the National Prosecuting Authority. Come to think of it, I don’t have a lot of friends there either, so the lack of a result isn’t that much of a surprise.
I’ve been hassling the state attorney, the office of the chief justice and every Zuma-linked influencer I can think of to try and get his affidavit.
No joy. Nada.
The general registrar’s office is packed. There’s a long queue of lawyers and clerks waiting for court orders to be printed or for documents to be stamped. The counter is one continuous pile of brown court files. There’s hardly a centimetre of wood visible. The walls are the same story: files from floor to ceiling.
The staff work through the queue with remarkable dexterity. They get to me. There’s no file with them. Perhaps Maritzburg? Perhaps the criminal office?
I head for the criminal office. It’s also file city, but smaller. There’s no queue. I state my case. The clerk is sympathetic. I’m not the first punter to ask since Friday. He can’t help though — there’s no copy of the application in the court file, which he pulled when the first journalist turned up to ask for it.
I hit Dullah Omar Road.
There’s a pregnant woman with an envelope of documents reading the “office closed” notice on the padlocked security gate of the labour centre.