Why I feel like being personal this time around, only God knows.
I have been a frequent visitor to Pretoria in recent weeks.
The reason was to track down certain company shares held by both myself and my late mother, which were purchased at the time I was still a resident of the Pretoria township of Soshanguve.
What nudges me to go this personal is how bureaucracy has treated me, and by extension several other millions of South Africans.
You see, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company from which these shares are held, has required certain documents for me to access the equity, among these that I apply for an executor’s
letter of authority from the Master of the High Court.
Common sense dictated that I go into the court’s website, identify the relevant authority and call for an appointment, and also find out what documents I needed to bring along.
You are not going to believe this … upwards of the 10 phone numbers on the website went unanswered.
In jest, a friend suggested that I called at a time the officials were at a lodge somewhere for a function and the much loved free lunch.
I took a chance and drove down to the court’s downtown offices in Pretoria the next day, without an appointment, but with a certified copy of my ID and so forth, in a brown envelope.
Not that brown envelope, my foot!
At the hallowed offices of the Master of the High Court, I was subjected to a long queue to which I was placed by a security officer.
When I ultimately landed at the cubicle face-to-face with an official who looked like she needed the day off very badly, I was told I was on the wrong queue and had to join another one.
Then I came face-to-face with a young man whose body language subtly told me to tell my story and disappear from his face.
Lo and behold, after subjecting me to what came across as interrogation, the young man told me I had to drive all the way to Polokwane to access the executor’s letter of authority.
By the time you read this, I should be burning tyre headed towards Polokwane for – there too – the main phone to the Master of the High Court was out of order.
Lord have mercy, oh civil servant have mercy.
— The BEAT
