RIDERS IN THE SKY

It has been a fascinating time to live through here on the southern tip as the nation has been pursuing a very significant project to determine the various rankings of our courts and our law enforcement agencies. It has become popular to describe the Constitutional Court as the apex court in the land. This is in question however, ever since ex-president Zuma’s counsel advised him to request a High Court to overturn the contempt of court ruling served on him by the Con Court. The next dose of amazement was the sight of the Minister of Police shimmying in every direction at once trying not to have to coax his previous boss to don a pair of handcuffs. In the end in a move described by his spokesman as an act of compliance by a law abiding citizen, Zuma bolted from his private residence at Nkandla and made a last minute dash to a prison in Estcourt. (yes the 3rd “court” of the paragraph). Described by a member of his legal team as a “penniless old man with bad health and legal advice” one wonders if seeing his mates the Gupta brothers will even cheer him up. It seems as if the last of the red tape preventing the extradition of the Gupta brothers (and perhaps some of their chums) from Dubai to South Africa has been snipped away. Probably they are not too thrilled even if they are getting the message from Jacob that the Estcourt prison is brand new although the chef is not much good at curry. Local taxpayers should be wary as they will be funding the prosecution. Lawyers, however, foresee litigation and argument and fee notes stretching out until their grandchildren can take over the briefs. Most people who have been to receive their doses of Covid-19 vaccination are delighted and astonished by the efficiency skill and professionalism shown at the clinics both pop-up and permanent. When this is all over, we need to get these people in to run the whole country. What does concern those of us doing the necessary long division is that the rate of progress of the vaccination program is not nearly high enough. We really should be aiming to complete the program well before the boffins at the WHO announce that they have identified another variant of the virus and named it omega. [the last letter in the Greek alphabet]. It is also interesting to see how few people in each age cohort are being reached compared to population size estimates. There are of course plenty of probable reasons for this including the presence of illegal foreigners who presumably are not eligible for the South African funded vaccine, and the likelihood of gross errors and fraud in the registration for the various state grants. Have the bureaucrats who drafted the pointless POPIA legislation, twigged onto the fact that so far we have been pestered by only those of our correspondents who have our details stored electronically? Even the letters, when the are finally delivered, will have been spewed from a database. No one still in business today will have any need for the astonishing section of the act where our smart and caring government actually specifies the sort of paper shredder that must be used to destroy printed documents. The fact is that our information resides for ever on servers in the cloud. Wherever they may be. It is possibly safe even from Eskom. Reportedly the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon is conducting a medical experiment during its Annual Championship being held now. It wants to find out how dangerous (specifically getting infected by the Covid-19 virus) it will turn out to be for people to attend the tournament. This is probably far more important and significant as it sounds since lack of good data about events like this are causing cancellations of similar events all over the world. Including the bokke’s second scheduled tests against the Georgians tomorrow and the B & I Lions in the coming weeks. James Greener Friday 9th July 2021