Tidemarks missed the fact that the extradition agreement between SA and the United Arab Emirates was signed about a year ago. But it has taken since then for the cops in Dubai to pop round to the Gupta compound and arrest several members of the notorious Gupta family. While this arrest is a wonderful move, it is puzzling that legal opinion is that the delay before actually shipping them back to SA is likely to be even longer. Why? Just the action of arresting them shows that the Arab fellows have already made up their minds and that putting them on a flight to ORT (not Sun City) should be simple. Rajesh and Atul have presumably insisted they have done nothing wrong so let’s have them back here and stick them in a cell with Jacob Zuma. In a day or two the friendship may have cooled, and the shouting and finger pointing will break out.
Despite Google’s assurance that the €500 note is becoming the unit of choice among your common-or-garden money launderers, Cyril seems to prefer Uncle Sam’s $100 bill when it comes to currency for his (ahem) confidential transactions. But this means that the rather piffling amount of USD 1 million does require the counting and carrying of ten thousand physical notes. This is not a trivial number or task. Reportedly our President Frogboiler shoehorned about 5 times this amount into his palliasse at the farm which sort of raises the old story of the Princess and the pea. It also suggests that his suspicion of Uncle Sam does not extend to his money.
One of South African top wildlife sightings is a cabinet minister excitedly quoting the bleeding obvious as if it’s an Earth-shattering revelation. One genre of this habit is when the declaration includes a list of items which have been “identified” by a committee. Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula is an aficionado of this practice. This week he announced that a road policy is being developed with four critical chapters, namely: Road Safety, Road Financing, Non-Motorised, and Road infrastructure delivery models. Can you picture the hours of committee work that went into identifying and labelling these topics? The real tragedy is that not much is likely to be done even as the latest horror accident claims two dozen lives. The first item on Fikile’s sorely cries out for effective and immediate official action. But like the Americans and gun control no one in charge (if they even exist) wants to tackle this problem, and it’s hard to understand why. Is it a toxic topic for voter support? Reportedly there is a country in Europe where the police confiscate and then totally crush any uninsured car they find on the roads. That’s pretty final!
Repairs and recovery from the two deadly rain bombs that hit Durban in the last 6 weeks are not obviously receiving much attention from the local authority. It turns out that little of the promised National Treasury rescue fund money has yet arrived in the province because no one has filed the correct applications! A feature of the rebuilding is the number of privately funded and organised initiatives taking over the official public functions. Are the state employees still working from home? It really is time to defuse this way too overblown health scare and get everyone working properly.
URC semi-finals happen this weekend with two SA based sides playing, but with a few SA stars playing for the Irish sides. Prices at the bookies show little support for the possibility that both will win and meet each other at the final. Are the organisers of this tournament now sorry they invited SA to join?
The TV sports networks have discovered an eager audience for women’s championship level golf where the players are almost all what has been crudely described as “eye-candy”. Interspersing scenes of birdie hunting by these lithe and attractive young ladies with commercials for power tools, cars and beer is apparently proving a winner. This week there was even a tournament format using what used to be called a “gruesome foursome”. i.e. mixed pairs.
James Greener
Friday 10th June 2022
