A shaynem dank dir im pupik

Through gritted teeth I say, before you address the failings of anything or lay blame for everything, such as is found in the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview, please, realise, understand, I beg you, everything, the entire country, success, revolves around one aspect and that is, the effective and efficient administration of Justice

This column is about the latest cover story on IWeek, the Editorial Comment regarding the cover story, another article in IWeek, to the effect The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DJCD) will focus on the use of ICT to implement a financial turnaround strategy, and the release of the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview.

The commission is an advisory body tasked with preparing recommendations for the Cabinet on issues affecting South Africa’s long-term development.

I have read the latter from cover to cover gobbling it up.

Regarding the IWeek cover and the editorial, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) launched the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) last year, SANSA says space investment will advance society and bring economic benefits.

IWeek goes on to report several questions have been raised by opposition parties and parliamentary portfolio committee members, around whether money pumped into space initiatives, will not be better spent on more critical needs, like housing and food.

There are fears SANSA is a funding black hole (initially R600 million a year to run SANSA) and should be privately funded.

Jeff Radebe is quoted in ITWeb, on the turnaround strategy for Justice, “we are also taking initiatives to enhance the capacity of the court administration through the Court Capacitation Project of the Justice Sector Strengthening Programme, which is an USAID-funded project.”

“Interventions that form part of the turnaround strategy include the implementation of drastic measures to stamp out corruption, online databases to address the credibility of the administration of insolvent estates, the rollout of the ICMS Masters (Integrated Case Management System) to all masters' offices.”

Which, is where my brain goes, “a shaynem dank dir im pupik”!

I was in Johannesburg last week on my way back from external travel having meetings at my favourite spot.

I bumped into the attorney representing my foe in a High Court matter who upon seeing me immediately apologised thus “sorry Bart but you are a victim of the court system”.

I have a client in New Zealand who has been defrauded of over R9 million. The perpetrator has been subject to a liquidation proceeding which has been held in secret.

The lawyers representing my client have applied to the Master to lift the secrecy restrictions. Months later, in both instances we both wait, me for a date for a simple exception hearing over six months, and my client for a simple signature.

Purely per chance the other day I stumbled on the website of a man, locked in a soul sapping 13 year battle, for equitable treatment by a major bank and Justice from the State.

I noticed on the site that this man was requesting information from the Master, related to another case entirely, from files in the Gauteng High Court.

“In the file are two Court Orders, from two separate Judges, dealing with documents that must be discovered by the bank, there are no such documents in the Court file. The last document in the Court file is dated 12th June 2009. It is a NOTICE IN TERMS OF RULE 35 (3) requesting that “working papers” and “… signed off financial statements ...” be discovered.

There are no such documents in the Court file.

Case No. 22420/2002 BK Spitz vs FirstRand Limited. This file has not been located.

Through gritted teeth I say, before you address the failings of anything or lay blame for everything, such as is found in the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview, please, realise, understand, I beg you, everything, the entire country, success, revolves around one aspect and that is, the effective and efficient administration of Justice.

It is when you ensure, that the rules and laws and rights, that were put in place, to achieve the goals and aims, so hopelessly lacking as described in the documents referred to, are enforced and upheld that all else will follow.

Get it?

Nowhere in the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview is the catastrophic failing of our Justice System even mentioned and the impact this has on our present and future?

If due process functioned, if Administrative Justice worked, if corruption was stamped out, our aspirations as a nation would be met!

There is after all something chronically askew in a nation that pays a police constable the equivalent of the minimum wage, paid to a cleaner employed by Eskom.

There is something fundamentally out of kilter when the State, a Ruling Party and its various organs, have as a policy, unwritten or otherwise, a philosophy of “plausible deniability”, designed with one purpose in mind and that is to obstruct or attempt to deny the rights awarded, or afforded citizens, by inefficient Courts, whose inefficiency both entrench and serve that precise purpose.

So thanks to the National Planning Commission for confirming what most already know?

Thanks for the prospect of a prestigious Space Program in the interim. It is patently obvious we need one, when we have demonstrated admirably, our inability to keep our feet on the ground.

We need hope; we don’t need to be shown, yet another bloody bellybutton.

Letter to Teacup

Darling Teacup.

I finally arrived in West Africa most fortunately unfortunately to teach.

It is as hot as Hades with perpetual power outages. 

The food for the most, actually exclusively, is local and includes the most vulgar chicken something, a chicken of a particular hardiness, cooked in a spinach type vegetable.

This is served with something called pounded yam. Pounded yam looks like pap but is in fact a tuber of some sort pounded to a pulp, then cooked to resemble pap, but it isn’t. 

You eat it with your fingers (pounded yam) and dip it in the chicken and “spinach”.

Eat it is actually misleading because you are not supposed to chew it. 

You simply swallow a dollop without chewing. Its taste is bitter and quite unpalatable.

It rolls down your throat in a solid bump and encourages gag reflex.

My attitude to food and tastebuds along with my sensibilities have been damaged beyond redemption I'm afraid. 

The perpetual power outages result in the lecture room, which is in a Christian Ministry compound, turning into an oven for constant periods throughout the day. 

In my purgatory of blistering heat and vulgar diet, I am reminded of the Voortrekkers and their tenacity sans technology, which is a constant source of inner strength, if they could pioneer, then so can I. 

I have discovered the reason for a bucket and bowl placed in a perfectly sound (though grubby) bath. 

I could not for a while fathom the logic of the locals placing a plastic bucket and plastic bowl in the bath of a R1500 a night Hotel.

The bucket and bowl it seems is for you to wash yourself down with, in the event you don't want to mess up your hairdo.

The fact that I am substantively follicly challenged, makes this gesture naturally redundant, however, as a consequence of this little attention to detail and obvious kind consideration I am left with no bath plug (or plug for handbasin) which is a source of some personal confusion.

Not to mention unfamiliar ablution technique. 

Other than a stomach that is causing some consternation, the unbearable heat, the incessant power outages, absent without leave delegates, no soap, no toilet roll, towels, bath and basin plugs, suicidal motorists driving on the wrong side of the road, animals, pedestrians and over R1500 a night rooms before meals, I am in a fine but positive mess. 

I must admit I am suffering a bit of an identity crises alternating between the Scarlet Pimpernel and Alice in Wonderland. 

Right now I'm both, which makes for interesting observation methinks (were I to be on a therapists couch).

Did I mention there is no coffee or tea in the rooms but a kettle? The kettle I am sagely advised is for if I want to boil water for something? My question as to what exactly I would need to boil water for, has as of yet, not been answered.

The kettle is a DeLonghi though and quite nice to look at. 

Coffee is available in the restaurant downstairs at approximately R15 a cup and comes with exactly two teaspoons of Nescafe Classic served straight from a tiny 30g tin with two sugar cubes and a sachet of powdered milk sufficient for a half litre of milk. 

Of course as you know I only use a drop of milk so someone is hoarding quantities of the stuff after I’m done with each cup.

My return flight is booked via a local airline so I should be back by tomorrow night. 

To the chagrin of my hosts I have steadfastly refused to fly their chosen Airlines because I feel the Airline has a more than shady safety record, which you may not necessarily know yourself. (Three crashes last year with significant loss of life). 

Suffice it to say I am now booked on a flight with an Airline I know absolutely nothing about thereby choosing the bliss of ignorance over common sense. 

The unrest which cost over 300 lives here a few days ago has largely occurred I am assured far from where I am. I have nothing to fear. 

This is good. 

While I may return (or may not) in one piece, be assured and prepared, I might very well be presented as an alcoholic basket case with a severe case of diarrhoea.

I think under the circumstances in the interest of self preservation it would be wholly appropriate to send the shuttle service to collect me and not you.

Please turn on the Jacuzzi and our electric blanket. Also, please take an aged steak from the deep freeze.

Leave the lights low, Dstv set to the Crime Channel and the air-conditioning set at 22° with a note to remind me, never, ever, ever to complain about our country again.

Pimpernel in Wonderland.