Take your queue from ANC

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

That sage observation became part of this writer’s life recently.

Let me set the scene. My mother, who lives in Ekurhuleni, is 91 years old and bed-ridden, having recently fallen and broken her leg.

Once a month I travel to her home, buy her groceries and pay her rates and taxes bill. The latter duty is the tough one.

Since the post office in my mother’s town no longer bothers to deliver mail, she has not received a water and lights bill for six months.

Every month, I have to go to the municipal offices for a print-out to determine what she owes. I am by no means alone in this quest.

On a recent Friday, I turned up to find a massive queue outside the building. Massive is an understatement – the line of people spilled out the doors, running around the entire building and down a side street.

Inquiries at the door yielded a discouraging answer – no, there was not any way to circumvent the line. Everybody there had the right to remain silent, stand in the queue and give the municipality money.

That queue had an awful resilience that saw it taking on an evil life of its own. Moving forward at a rate of about two metres every 15 minutes, we all bowed our heads against the sun and sought courage.

There was an enterprising guy trying to sell cold drinks but he got little support – the people there who have to pay the municipality do not have spare cash for stuff like cold drinks.

Some old and sickly people grew weak, faltered and fell. Stronger people stepped over them, scared to lose their place in the line.

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So did I – their pitiful, helpless cries visit me in terrible nightmares, but I was damned if I would lose my place in that queue from hell.

As I finally entered the building’s door, I could see the problem – behind thick panes of glass there was one – yes, count her – one, clerk. She looked exhausted and desperate, barely hanging on to her sanity as she viewed the chaos.

That was when the gentleman behind me spoke. “Amazing – just one person on duty, when they know how many people will turn up…”

It turned out my new acquaintance had a bigger problem than I.

“My scumbag employers stopped paying me three months ago – my fellow workers and I just get promises every month, but no money.

“I am dead broke and this morning I got a notice on my front gate from the municipality. They are going to cut off my electricity – not for a while, like Eskom, but permanently,” he said.

He had come to negotiate some sort of compromise. Once at the front of the killer queue, he would try to see somebody in charge.

“I do not wish to add to your distress but I can assure you, it being Friday afternoon, the fat-cat bureaucrats who supposedly run the place have long left for their mansions,” I said.

“They are arrogant, unfeeling bastards – just like my employers,” he said.

I never got his name, but my new friend and I concurred firmly on one thing.

The enemy of the South African people is the South African government. Never thought I would find myself in absolute agreement with an employee of the ANC.