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The intended consequences: Ben Trovato’s open letter to NPA boss Shaun Abrahams

Ben Trovato has been a thorn in the side of South African politicians, corporations and the general populace for almost 30 years. He’s already authored 12 books, and currently writes a weekly column for the Sunday Tribune.

He penned this fascinating piece of satire aimed at current NPA boss Shaun Abrahams following the trumped up charges of fraud against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Trovato sides with Abrahams, which makes the move look even more absurd. Brilliant stuff and a must read. The article was published with permission of the author. – Stuart Lowman

By Ben Trovato*

Dear Comrade Shaun,

Congratulations on rounding up the finance minister and two of his former henchmen from the SA Revenue Service. Like you, I despise people who understand numbers. They aren’t to be trusted.

Numbers can mean anything depending on what you do with them. This is why your man, President Zuma, has trouble reading figures more than three digits long. And I need not remind you, of all people, what a trustworthy, reliable, honest person our leader is.

I see you are an advocate. Well done. Your title is so important that it even had a drink named after it. No, wait. I’m thinking of advokaat. Dreadful stuff. Rich and thick, like a lot of people in the legal profession.

NPA_Gordhan_October2016


Cartoon courtesy of Twitter @brandanrey

You were admitted to the Bar a few years ago. I was admitted to the bar twenty minutes ago. Now I’m just waiting for happy hour. Sorry. That’s a drinking joke and this is not the time to be telling jokes. It is, however, the time to be drinking.

Prosecution is too good for the likes of Pravin Gordhan. The nation was shocked when they got wind of the heinous crime he committed while head of Sars back in 2010. Approving a colleague’s early retirement then rehiring him as a consultant is right up there with Stalin’s purges, if not the Holocaust.

Gordhan should be strung up by the heels and publicly whipped. Better yet, turn him over to the Saudis. They know what to do with people who approve early retirement packages.

None of this would be happening if Gordhan hadn’t dissed you when you ordered him to present himself for a warning statement in August. Basically, he told you to get stuffed. What’s the point of being sheriff if people don’t obey you? It reminds me of when I was made prefect in primary school.

This one red-headed kid kept ignoring my commands so I burnt the school down. It didn’t matter that everyone was affected.

The important thing was that this boy suffered for disrespecting the rank of prefect. You, sir, are this country’s über-prefect, and even though your decision to prosecute the finance minister has caused the price of bread to rise and my retirement savings to shrink, I still respect your rank.

It seems, though, you might be prepared to reconsider if Gordhan makes the appropriate grovelling noises. I doubt he will, though. He comes from Durban.

Some people are whining that your decision caused the rand to fall by 3%. Oh, please. I got 3% for maths in tenth grade and I turned out just fine. Comparatively, anyway. These thin-lipped critics with their knowledge of numbers also say that nearly R50bn was wiped off the JSE’s banking index. People like us don’t even know what the JSE is.

And we care even less. Right, Shaun? The important thing is to crack down on the evil-doers. Obviously you need to prioritise. Get the real criminals before they do even more damage. Let this one slide and the next thing you know, everyone is getting an early retirement package.

Once the finance minister is safely behind bars, you need to move on the jaywalkers and the litterers. Are you perhaps prosecuting people alphabetically? If, for instance, there was someone whose surname started with Z and who should, for argument’s sake, be expected to answer, say, 783 charges, you probably wouldn’t get around to him for 50 years at least. Can’t get fairer than that.

The timing of your announcement was perfect. Gordhan is due to deliver the medium term something-or-other in parliament in a few days.

It’s important to distract him so that he makes mistakes. We need to minimise the risk of him showing up his cabinet colleagues as a mob of mouth-breathing imbeciles. Nobody likes a smartarse.

Come to think of it, Gordhan never even scored a cent from his crime against humanity. That’s not very smart at all. We have countless civil servants managing to successfully loot state coffers every day without being caught. Good for them. Your disinterest in prosecuting suggests that you, like me, have a grudging respect for competent career criminals.

All the president wants Gordhan to do is rotate the country’s gold reserves like Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson did with our oil reserves. Okay, so a billion rand went missing in that deal, but rotating is a tricky business. Incidentally, a couple of liberationists got into my house last weekend and rotated my laptop and camera.

As you know, the problem is that Gordhan selfishly keeps the keys to the treasury on a chain around his neck. We need a minister who will make copies for his friends. The Guptas, for instance, briefly had a key but then lost it when Des van Rooyen ended his weekend stint as finance minister.

The other problem with Gordhan is that he keeps allocating money to doomed causes like education and health instead of helping secure nuclear power deals with our Russian friends. My first choice for Gordhan’s replacement is Fikile Mbalula. Why not? Send in the clowns, I say.

Getting the Hawks to swoop on the finance minister’s home with a summons first thing in the morning was a stroke of genius. This would have sent a clear message to his grandchildren or any other relatives being harboured in his house that the NPA is not to be trifled with when it comes to the illicit granting of early retirement.

Unfortunately, Gordhan had already left for work so your men had to go all the way to his office. What kind of monster goes to work that early? This is another reason he belongs in jail. Putting in a solid day’s work sets a dangerous precedent and creates expectations that simply cannot be met. Diligence must be crushed as a matter of priority.

Your timing was impeccable, serving the summons on Gordhan just after returning from New York where he encouraged business leaders to invest in South Africa. Does the man have no shame? Few of us have the money to go overseas and by jetting off like that, he is rubbing our noses in our own poverty.

Fortunately, your decision to prosecute him will ensure that nobody apart from maybe Whitey Basson and Patrice Motsepe will be able to travel further than Nelspruit. If, by bringing Gordhan down, you cripple our economy in the process, so be it. What is the rand, anyway? It’s just paper.


Even after getting the summons, Gordhan continued mouthing off. “The fight against corruption‚ maladministration and waste of public resources will continue,” he threatened from his leafy rebel hideout in Waterkloof.

It’s this kind of radical talk that will destroy our country. Can you not slap him with a gagging order? Why can he not emulate our awesome president and not comment on anything? Why does he not take leave instead of decisions?

While doing research to make sure you are who you say you are, I came across some interesting information. Your favourite movie, for example, is Gladiator. I get the fantasy of trapping people in a net and poking them with a trident, but I can’t help thinking you’re less of a Russell Crowe and more of a Karl Pilkington. Do you know him? He was in a series called An Idiot Abroad.

I also learnt that your mother’s nickname for you is “Pikkewyntjie”. In a language everyone can understand, that means “Little Penguin”. Apparently it was because of the way you walked as a baby and not, as one might imagine, because of your habit of spearing raw fish with your beak. If you face Gordhan in court, I think you should waddle like a penguin. That would throw him off balance.

Read also: 10 things you didn’t know about new NPA head Shaun Abrahams

I particularly enjoyed this quote from your mother. “He was really not an academic boy. Always rugby, rugby, rugby. I would battle to get that child to study.” As we know, rugby has produced some of this country’s finest minds. Look at Bakkies Botha. Man, that oke are clever like a fox.

Do you know who else you should prosecute? The Public Protector, that’s who. Not Busisiwe Mkhwebane. She’s on the team. I’m talking about the renegade Thuli Madonsela. Summons her to answer charges of impugning the dignity of the president. What that poor man has gone through at her hands.

Now that she is no longer in office, there is nobody to protect her. Well, I suppose the public might. In which case, prosecute the public. Issue summonses for all 53 million. Even if they say they have done nothing wrong, I’m sure you will come up with something.

Finally, thanks to you, we can all sleep a little sounder in our beds at night knowing that Pravin Gordhan isn’t out there somewhere, wilfully approving early retirements.

Viva.

  • Ben Trovato is working on many things, but mainly on a way to spend winters in Durban and summers in Cape Town. A print journalist and television producer by trade, he has travelled to hundreds of countries, slept with thousands of women and written millions of words.Currently skating on thin ice as a Sunday Tribune columnist, he can often be found surfing instead of meeting his deadlines. He has written twelve books, although you wouldn’t think so if you had to see his living conditions. Trovato lives alone with two regrets and a hangover.

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