Toby Shapshak: Pattern Recognition

also don’t know what security clearance means, as their hurried defences were quickly unpicked by all and sundry.

Legal academic Pierre de Vos pointed out that the ministers had even misunderstood the National Key Points Act itself: “The owner of the National Key Point concerned shall after consultation with the minister at his own expense take steps to the satisfaction of the minister in respect of the security of the said key point” (his emphasis).

It makes a powerful argument for what is being called “open data”. This is a way of filtering through the data and other information that governments are — and should be — making available about its services and citizens.

The argument goes that digging through this data allows for better services.

Websites like AfricaCheck.org have started debunking many of the myths that predominate SA discourse. Its reports include: “Are SA whites really being killed like flies? Why Steve Hofmeyr is wrong”; and “Is Johannesburg the world’s largest man-made forest? The claim is a myth.”

A quick scan of the recent reports has a disproportional amount of debunked information from state sources, including the widely discredited crime statistics and Zuma’s assertions. Among the reports are these: “Schools promised by Zuma have not been built” and “Zuma’s claim that SA is one of only 12 countries with safe tap water is untrue”.

But it also deflates other myths: “Is SA’s education system the worst in Africa? Not according to the data”.

No-one is safe under the glare of proper analysis (not merely knee-jerk responses), not least the spendthrift architects and builders of a certain Southforklike household in the rolling hills of KwaZulu Natal.

How long before we start calling Number One the Imelda Marcos of Nkandla? Shapshak is editor and publisher of

Stuff magazine (stuff.co.za). Follow him on Twitter: @shapshak