UNSIFICCIENT MBEKI. CROOKED SELEBI- AND THE JOLLY TAX,MAN

BEFORE our police chief, flabby Jackie Selebi, was suspended facing serious criminal charges, there was a joke going around that suggested that we would all be happier, and safer, if tax commissioner Pravin Gordhan became head of the police and Selebi ran the South African Revenue Service.

That way, our highly efficient tax collection process would be rapidly ruined, much to the delight of taxpayers, while our police force would at last become something close to effective, much to the delight of all law-abiding citizens, the large bulk of whom, by the way, do not pay income tax.

On that point it is interesting to note that, while in most countries there are roughly 1.5 to 2 voters per taxpayer, in South Africa the ratio is 12 voters to each taxpayer. Talk about an inverted pyramid.

Returning to Selebi, it was, of course, the former ANC president, Thabo Mbeki, who implored us to “trust me” about the man, before the flabby cop (and how about those slobs pictured with that other suspect cop, Robert McBride?) was charged.

Now, in much the same way, he is telling the world to have patience with his murderous, dictatorial, increasingly senile, hand-holding buddy in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.

As with Selebi, our Chief Denialist asks us and the world to trust him on Mugabe. In other words, trust Mugabe to drive his benighted nation into further chaos and ruin, or trust him to steal yet another election, or trust him to bugger off to Malaysia to live luxuriously on the fortune he has plundered from his nation’s treasury?

Or perhaps he can join Haiti’s former ruler, Jean Bertrand Aristide, and live in great comfort and security in Pretoria at the expense of the South African taxpayer?

Maybe we taxpayers can also foot the bill for the genocidal Mengistu Haile Miriam, brutal former dictator of Ethiopia, for whose heavy expenses the Zimbabwean taxpayer is currently liable.

One doubts if a new Zimbabwe government would waste much time returning Mengistu to Ethiopia, where he will face an early execution.

Anyway, we continue to consider Aristide as the legitimate head of state of Haiti, so why not extend a similar courtesy to Mengistu?

As is well known, our government is swimming in money, so it can well afford this largesse for former dictators, although when one drives past kilometres of those pathetic shacks surrounding Cape Town one wonders just what else they’re doing with it, aside from blowing billions on useless armaments.

One must admire Gordhan for the efficiency with which he fleeces us. However, he seems sometimes to become overenthusiastic, treating the serious and delicate matter of tax collection as a “game” in which prizes are awarded to those successful in wringing funds out of reluctant citizens.

Apparently it can be quite startling when visiting a SARS office to have one’s eardrums suddenly assaulted by blaring vuvuzelas, cheering, stomping of feet and much yelling and singing, similar to that heard at soccer derbies.

This occurs, apparently, when a large cheque comes in and someone is handsomely rewarded.

One would have thought that relations between citizens and the taxman could be conducted in a more reserved and civilised manner, wouldn’t one?

As much as they polish their own marble, the SARS folk do run into some harsh criticism from the courts – such as this, for example: “The actions of the respondents’ (SARS) officials falls short of the standard of professional conduct that the public is entitled to expect of them.

“They were never entitled to treat the appellant’s allegations with the evident contempt their actions bespeak.”