BE assured, this column is not an April Fool’s prank.
Even though the Herald comes out on a Thursday, it is always dated the last day of the week… which happens to be April 1 this Friday. So it needs to be said that we are not trying to fool you ahead of time.
As is often the case in this country, truth is stranger than fiction and here are two really good examples:
1. The Department of Environmental Affairs is currently proposing new, extended ‘Marine Protected Areas’, as our own Judi Davis has reported on several occasions. Mpenjati (Trafalgar) is one of these areas, so no ‘stywe lyne’ for nudists.
However, more careful perusal of a very lengthy item still up for discussion is that if one is caught fishing in these reserves between 5pm and 6am – even off the rocks in some places – there’s a fine of… wait for it… R5-million (or five years in jail) for a first offence! A bit stiff, one might argue.
A second offence is double that.
It’s highly unlikely that most anglers – never mind subsistence fishermen – will be able to cough up that amount, so jail will surely be the only option. That should solve the problem entirely, as most of us will either be dead or too old to fish after serving that amount of time.
Picture the prison banter:
“What are you in for?”
“Fishing.”
Hopefully common sense prevails after consultation with prospective jailbirds at the Margate Town Hall on April 5 at 3pm.
2. One wonders how many of us have had to cough up fines for late payments of vehicle licences because the Department of Transport did not send out reminders.
This was p*ssed off (sorry, passed off) as a national cost-cutting exercise, but it has now come out in Parliament that the real reason was… wait for it again… the DOT didn’t pay its Post Office bill!
The DA’s Manny de Freitas asked the question in Parliament some weeks ago and Minister Dipuo Peters ‘fessed up.
Now try and top those two babies as April Fool’s jokes. If they weren’t so tragic, they might be funny.
Even though all government departments work for the same BIG boss, there have been many cases of officials refusing the share their ‘swag’ with each other.
Maybe it’s time to add another ministry to our already bloated cabinet: The Department of Internal Collectors (DIC).
Arm them with baseball bats and empower them to break the kneecaps of their tardy, miserly colleagues.
On second thoughts, we better make that cricket bats as there are plenty of those lying around now after our performance in the World T20 in India.
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