TONGUE

CHEEK Tata’s tearful return

IN KEEPING with heavenly traditions, Nelson Mandela was called to the Pearly Gates on the anniversary of his death this week and handed a complimentary day pass for a whistle-stop trip to his home country.

He’d been away from South Africa for three long years and, since he was travelling incognito, this was an ideal opportunity for him to track progress made on the many foundations he had laid during his lifetime.

The first stop was his old stamping ground, Luthuli House, where a session of the ANC’s national executive committee was in progress.

But unlike the old days, when ANC leaders generally agreed to agree on everything, this time they were at each other’s throats.

His eyes almost burst out of their sockets when he saw some former comrades – Andrew Mlageni, Derek Hanekom, Aaron Motsoaledi and Naledi Pandor – get hot under the collar and shout “Out, out, out” as they called for the party president to resign.

Worse sparks were to follow when two senior cabinet members almost came to blows.

It was too much for the old man to bear. So he sauntered to the Treasury building, where a forlorn Pravin Gordhan was paging through a manual on “How To Win Friends and Influence Rating Agencies”.

When he saw Gordhan emptying out the last few coins from his piggy bank, the former president held back a tear, realising his country had fallen on hard times.

So he moved on to visit some of his old bright sparks at Eskom.

But the door to the electricity headquarters was shut, and the sign outside read: “Boss quit. In case of emergency, ring the Saxonwold shebeen.”

Curious to find out more, our visitor took a taxi to the posh suburb and found a giant, opulent mansion. He tried to enter, but the sign on the front gate was quite unwelcoming: “No visitors allowed – only captured ministers.”

Driving away, his heart felt heavy at the sight of such abject poverty and misery on the streets of shack settlements along the way.

His next stop was an estate agency to find out more about the housing issue, as he had always believed South Africa belonged to all who lived in it. But the agent in attendance, Penny Sparrow, rebuffed him, believing he was up to some monkey business.

Education was also an issue close to the old man’s heart, so he stopped in at the Pretoria High School for Girls, but was disgusted to discover that 22 years into democracy, apartheid was still alive and kicking in his country.

Mandela was by now bewildered. It was only halfway into his day pass, but he had already seen enough. As he travelled back home, he cried for his beloved country. Sorry, Tata.

dennis.pather@telkomsa.net