Space cadets in the Cabinet

Good morning. Mr Elon Musk’s office, Clarice speaking. How can I help you?

Good morning, My name is Ramaphosa, Cyril Ramaphosa. What a beautiful name you have. One of my ministers has a middle name which is Clarice, much better than her first name Nkosazana…

I’m afraid I don’t understand…

Sorry Clarice. I am the President of South Africa and we were supposed to have a Zoom conference with Mr Musk at 9am. I know it’s after 1pm now – but, ha ha, this is South Africa, so time doesn’t mean much.

Also, the power went out and then when we tried to start the conference, someone hacked the feed and posted offensive images of one of our former ministers imagining something…

Mr Musk told me I shouldn’t expect you to be on time. But I’ll put you through…

Hello Cyril! Well done on getting to Level 2.

It’s a pity this isn’t like a computer game otherwise you could have zapped more zombies on the other levels…but then you’d have no Cabinet left!Ha ha. Sorry sir, that’s a techie joke…

To business, Elon! I have with me my minister of communications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, who is leading our march to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Say hello, Stella…

Hello Mr Tesla

Err, no, Tesla is the electric car we make, I am Elon Musk.

Ah Mr Musk. Our people are wearing their musks – that is why we are beating Covid!

Oh, never mind – what can I do for you, minister?

Well, we are going to take land from the advantaged suburban people so we can do our 5G roll-out. I told them this was so we can have autonomous-driving cars. But I don’t know this thing…

We are working on that at Tesla and the technology still has some glitches we need to sort out…

Glitches? Good! I will give my cousin the tender for these glitches. Please double the price on the invoice and pay the difference to my account in Geneva…

What?

Elon, Cyril here again. We do have an urgent need for cars which don’t require a driver, particularly for senior ANC comrades. These human drivers see too much and hear too much, especially when it comes to bags of cash…

I see – but my cars run on electricity. And you don’t have a lot of that…

We know, Elon, so we thought you could sell us a few batteries. My comrades have other family members who can import them…

But Cyril… oh never mind. You need to think of renewable energy. Why not hold a special ANC National Conference and then harvest the methane gas from the manure generated by the delegates?

Also you and your ANC people do so much spinning, it would be simple to connect all of you to a dynamo! You’d have so much electricity you could export it!

Good idea Elon! We could increase taxes to pay for the dynamo!

Mr President it is only fair I tell you: I have been contacted by the DA and EFF who are raising money to book the next launch of a Space-X rocket.

They have asked us to leave you and your Cabinet somewhere around Pluto…

Brendan Seery.

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