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When the going gets tough, stressed IBA councillors reach for their cards
NOBODY should be surprised that the free-spending members of the Independent Broadcasting Authority are experiencing some amnesia over their expense claims. After all, when you are a busy executive with a government-sponsored credit card to flash around and you know that the taxpayer is going to pick up the tab, you certainly can't be expected to remember every last detail of your expenditure. You know what it's like when you are entertaining those thirsty media types; here a bottle of Bollinger, there a glass or two of vintage Armangnac and before too long you have a table full of empties in front of you and are calling for fresh supplies. Then there are all those expensive restaurants to try and luxury hotels to stay in, not to mention the occasional little reward for all that hard work, like a ticket to a Pavarotti concert. The last thing you expect is that the nosy old auditor-general is going to come snooping around asking for documentation and babbling on about accountability, whatever that is supposed to mean. After all, if it was supposed to be accountable to government as all these politicians are now claiming, they shouldn't have called it the "Independent" Broadcasting Authority. That could confuse a stupid person. So now everyone is charging around, wasting valuable spending time and trying to come up with documents explaining where R700 000 has disappeared to. What a pity that Allan Boesak has already patented "struggle bookkeeping" as a defence. One delaying tactic that often comes in useful in matters like this is to claim that the card was stolen and that it must have been the thieves that ran up all those huge bills. UNFORTUNATELY, this has already been tried by co-chairperson Peter de Klerk, who had to retract this defence when Diners Club revealed that, compared to the owner of the card, the thieves had been fairly frugal. In fact, taxpayers might wish that more IBA councillors had their credit cards stolen. However, let's not be too judgmental. What we need to understand is that the task of whiling away your time deciding who has the right to broadcast to a supposedly democratic nation is an enormously stressful one, and councillors are bound to want to go on an all-expenses paid binge every so often just to relieve the tension. If you thought it was simply a matter of checking that applicants for broadcasting licences have some previous experience of the medium, that they intend to be entertaining, own a few tons of radio equipment and have about three month's advertising lined up, you would be very wrong. In fact, when it comes to applying for a licence, previous broadcasting experience, good programming and commercial viability are often a positive disadvantage. I imagine that struggle "street cred" and the right political connections are what really count. After all, you wouldn't want the means of communication falling into the wrong hands would you? Given the sterling work the members of the IBA are doing in this regard, I think we can safely assume that these mischievous allegations of expense-account abuse will be allowed to disappear from the public domain uninvestigated. I READ last week that stocks of English-speaking Cuban doctors are running dangerously low and we may have to put a temporary hold on our import plans until the few doctors left in Cuba have been taught to speak English. However, all may not be lost because the Minister of Education is now thinking of importing Cuban teachers to fill the gap left by SA teachers who have just accepted the government's voluntary redundancy packages. It seems to me that all we have to do now is get the Cuban teachers to help the Cuban doctors brush up on their English and we can then entirely dispense with the services of SA doctors and teachers. Assuming that this trend continues, it will be only a matter of time before we read that Sydney Mufamadi is thinking about importing Cuban policemen, particularly if they can speak English, do joined-up writing and drive a car; skills that are apparently lacking in a high percentage of local applicants. The government obviously has a strategy worked out. Once they have emptied Cuba, they can use it as penal colony and save the taxpayer a fortune on prison services.
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