Equality is a pipe dream unless you are connected

It is somewhat comforting to know that we still live in a world where the slightest flurry of snow causes great excitement, with floods of people driving around hills and mountain passes in the hope of seeing some of the white stuff. 
And we are not talking about the stuff that police sometimes find at schools… No, snow is still big news in Northern KZN, with old-timers still talking fondly of ‘The Great Snowfalls of October 1965 and 1970’.
It really makes a change from, yes – school dramas, genuine tragedies and the comic tragedy of our local government structures.
2014 is racing past so quickly that we sometime lose focus on where we are going. But it has been a strange year of strange events and even stranger people.
Where else would a Chief Financial Officer from a municipality go missing with a laptop containing the municipality’s financial records?
Stranger still, he is then tracked down to a Newcastle mall by ‘heavies’, whom he wrestles off while managing to flee, clutching the laptop. A bit like one of those Bourne Identity-type movies… Then, in the Northern Cape, a 22-year-old-matriculant-mother-of-one spoke passionately on national TV about how the community’s decision to close down schools in protest against the non-tarring of roads has dashed her dream of becoming a nurse. There is something oddly unreal, sad and funny about this. 
And how about the schools in the Eastern Cape? Teachers closed down 40 schools as they ‘saw a shortage of teachers’, meaning that in some instances there were only five teachers for 500 kids.
And all that tub-thumping from ol’ Minister Angie about achieving a 77% matric pass rate? It all tastes like dull sandpaper.
And then here we have people who get preferential treatment. Not only when it comes to dealing with murder, assault (where you can get off if you pay the right amount, apparently), but also with your debt to the municipality. If you know the right people, the published sale in execution against you can be stopped and you can just carry right on and pretend you are an upright Citizen Kane.
We strive for equality, but it always fails. Some who open food businesses have to invest heavily in stainless steel equipment, hairnets and countless health regulations. Or you can just buy your pap from the oke selling outside the hospital from a pot on the pavement.
The Labour Department checks if your office has a first aid box (no Panados, please), but it is OK for some foreign nationals to sleep in their shops, which is also against by-laws. 
Yes, equality is a pipe dream – unless you have connections, of course.