En Passant: Doing things by degrees

YOU WOULD have to live in Outer Mongolia or somewhere similarly remote, like Glückstadt say, not to know that we’ve a new trend in South Africa. Actually, I suppose there are a number of new trends, but this one involves people, chancers, idiots claiming that they have qualifications that in fact they haven’t got.

There are so many examples that I feel spoiled for choice. Some of these deluded morons have even been at the helm of some state enterprises. Is it any wonder, you may ask, that some of these state enterprises are up the creek and paddleless.

Most recently in the news was Dr Daniel Mtimkulu, the Chief Engineer of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA). PRASA under his watch as Chief Engineer purchased Spanish locomotives worth R600million that were 299mm too tall for South African rail infrastructure. Dr Mtimkulu, it has been discovered, is not registered as an engineer at the Engineering Council. The Council rejected him in 2006 due to a lack of qualifications, and no one will say where he actually got his “doctorate”.

Dr Pallo Jordan, once a minister in government, it turned out had as much right to the title as Donald Duck, and SABC board Chairperson Ellen Tshabalala didn’t have the degrees or diplomas that she claimed to have. You might remember, despite the revelations she clung to the position like an oyster welded to a rock, and had to be prised from the chair by a front end loader.

And there are many other examples that have come to light, and no doubt there are many that are still to emerge. And the thing is that the only cases that make the news are the cases involving high-profile characters. Who knows how many false claims there are among the riff-raff.

Now, my informer, my deep throat, my whistle blower in high places, has leaked to me new plan by government to curtail this trend. I have it on good authority that the problem has been handed to the Department of Higher Education, it being the power behind the thrones of tertiary education, and tertiary education being the ultimate source when it comes to dishing out diplomas, degrees and doctorates.

Apparently, and this is from a reliable source, you understand (although when I spoke to him he was smoking something that had a distinctly herbal aroma), apparently the bright idea is to task the Post Office branches around the country as screening facilities.

Thing is, see, when you address mail to a qualified person, the polite form of address is to include the person’s qualifications. So a letter to a doctor should be addressed “Dr Joe Soap MD, FRCS, LRCP” for example, a lawyer would be “Jimmy Smith LLB, BCom(Law)”.

As I understand it, officials will be scrutinising envelopes with addressee qualifications, and matching these qualifications against a database of recipients of diplomas, degrees and doctorates compiled by the Department of Higher Education.

Thus it was that a few days after I received a letter from my sister in England, I received a notice asking me to clarify my educational qualifications.

I correspond with my sister mostly by e-mail, but occasionally she’ll write to me on special occasions or when she’s been somewhere unusual and wants to brag about it.

But she’s a bit of a comic my sister. I love her dearly but in truth she’s a nutter, crazy as a fox. For years her letters have come to me addressed to “JD Carnegie (AH)”. This is what the Department is questioning, the “(AH)”. They wrote:

“Dear Sir/Madam/Dr/Prof,

“We note that mail is being addressed to you with the added salutation ‘AH’.

“We have checked our database and regret to inform you that the qualification ‘AH’ does not appear therein.

“Allowing for the possibility that you obtained this qualification outside the Republic of South Africa, the only possibility seems to be that you might have some connection to the Hungarian Intelligence Agency, the Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal (AH), or Constitution Protection Office of that country.

“Checking with the Department of Home Affairs, it has been established that you have never applied for a visa to visit Hungary, and therefore it is unlikely that the ‘AH’ has anything to do with that country.

“The Department of Higher Educations is taking stern measures against people who claim to have qualifications that they have never rightly earned.

“We therefore ask you to provide us with justification, in the form of a sworn statement, for your claim to be an ‘AH’.

“Yours faithfully,

“Ellen Tshabalala MSc, BCom, TCP, DDT.”

Now I ask you this. How does one tell old Ellen and the Department of Higher Education that even people who claim qualifications that they’re not entitled to, should be allowed to put AH after their names? Because, you see, AH stands for arsehole!