I experienced the up and the down of this country yesterday. Got a call from my security firm (which you can't be without these days) that my home has been broken into.

Of course, all sorts of ifs and what's go through your mind whilst driving back from work. The response company were patiently waiting for my arrival as the house was wide open. We established that nothing was stolen (thank God) but the damage to the security gate (which is a prime requirement by any insurance company) and front door was extensive. Unfortunately for the would-be robbers, the cut telephone cable did not prevent ADT from getting the alarm.

The upside to the whole saga was the response I got from the local police. They were here within the hour (not bad at all for your standard break-in), well-mannered, well spoken and efficient in writing out the report. That's after they sufficiently destroyed the only possible place for a fingerprint, which was the front doorbell button. Later that same afternoon they phoned me with a case number (prime requirement for all insurance claims). A far cry from eight years ago when I had my last robbery and a definite improvement. Good work to ADT and the local SAPS.

And to show that I'm one of the more fortunate ones, our Deputy President got robbed with her in the house. That in spite of having some 18 highly trained VIP protection unit cops assigned to her. Six days later the suspects were apprehended. Just shows, no-one is good enough not to get robbed!

After all that nothing good can be said about our council. I'll be publishing information on corruption within our local ANC council shortly, adding to last weeks mention on the irregularities on the construction of buildings in the Mogale City area.

I mentioned the state of public health before - well, here's one better! One of our esteemed ministers are having talks with medically trained staff in the UK to try and convince them to return. And back at home the plan is to slash public hospital fees by up to 70%. These guys cannot afford to keep staff, the cannot afford the upkeep of these facilities and they can't afford emergency vehicles. Damn, they can't afford to drop some of the 21% government charges on fuel in order to help "the people". They want more for less in return.

It's a guarantee that the funds needed to run hospitals will come out of our pockets at the end of the day. With government officials renting fancy cars on weekends on their government credit cards, nothing surprises us anymore.

This is the month of craziness in South African politics. The door is open to "floor-crossing" to political parties' members. Only in Africa, what more can one say? What this means is that if a specific party member feels "unhappy" with his / her current party, he or she can walk over to another party without loosing his / her seat in parlaiment. So much for voting. I vote for a party other than the ANC and have (at the end of the day) no idea if this candidate will walk over to the ANC. It shows what a "liberal" constitution we have so the governing party can change it's rules as they go along. Make me think of Mugabe.

The local elections are round the corner. According to a survey only about 44% of people believe that these elections are important. Most youngsters aren't interested in politics. The government "seems" to be doing a good job, so why worry?

Out of The Star newspaper, a fitting strip :

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