A forgettable day.

Dingilizwe Ntuli picked me up this morning and we proceeded to his office at the Sunday Times.

The paper is a commercial monster, weighing a staggering 1,6kg in supplements and pullouts.

It is owned by Johnnic, the parent company for various other regional newspapers, the Business Day and Gallo Music. It also has its own television station.

While at the Sunday Times, Japhet Ncube called to say his daughter had been bitten by a dog while on her way to the shops.

It sounded unreal, maybe because I had seen her daughter just hours before. I just thought it was one of his depraved jokes.

He was telling the truth.

It is said the dog jumped a wall from a neighbour’s house and attacked the girl, biting her on both hands.

I later saw her heavily bandaged and looking in great pain.

The dog? I heard it had been shot.

I hope the police will throw the book at the owners of the dog.
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I visited the Crisis in Zimbabwe offices to see Nkosinathi Tshuma.

He has offered me lunch. We drove to the suburb of Yeovel – our destination a place called kwaGumede.

Nkosi tells me the owner of the eatery is a Zimbabwean man called Gumede.

It’s a butchery and restaurant in one. Nkosi wastes no time. Barbecuing is one of the few things he is good at. No, I am just being harsh.

The sadza is readily cooked, and it turns out to be one of the most satisfying meals I have had this year – and I have tasted all sorts!

Japhet is busy this afternoon, so I linked up with Ntuli and we proceeded to the News Café in Rosebank.

Ntuli tells me Japhet can be very elusive if he meets people of interest (the lawyers have advised that we call it that, if you see what I mean).

Chatty waiters told us of a very loyal customer who eats his breakfast there almost everyday – former ZBC CEO Munyaradzi Hwengwere, who has set up a consultancy company in South Africa.

Described by newspapers here as a “former Mugabe loyalist”, a badge he got for his service to the Information Department under Jonathan Moyo, Hwengwere’s first big project is to convince the world that asbestos is not such a danger to our health!

Tough one if you ask me.

There is a debate among waiters here whether he drinks any alcohol or not, but it is clear that if ever Hwengwere does, it is not on the scale of the quantities that Ntuli takes!

We also met a middle-aged manager for a nearby restaurant and we got chatting about employment opportunities in South Africa.

There is no question that while South Africa is a land of plenty, or as one SABC producer told me, ‘it’s the best time to be young, black and educated in South Africa’, foreign nationals with superior qualifications wait for years to get work permits – if they do get them at all.

Without work permits, many are forced to work the same jobs for far less money, while their South African counterparts rake in up to twice as much – simply because they have got the papers.

I choose not to name some of our top Zimbabwean personalities who have found themselves caught up in the work permit nightmare – but we can refer to the very public case of Alois Bunjira, the soccer player who had to wait on the sidelines for a YEAR to get a work permit to play for Jomo Cosmos.

This is just an unacceptable reality for many reasons. Bunjira’s talent is closely linked to age. A footballer is obviously different from an accountant, and whereas a year lost for an accountant can be compensated in the long run, for a footballer, it can mark the beginning of the end.

“Managers tell me ‘we want to hire you’, but just get your papers sorted,” the man tells me. “It’s a nightmare, and I can assure you every working Zimbabwean in South Africa has had one or two forgettable experiences in their bid to get work permits.”

For all its advancements in other areas, South Africa still remains a bureaucratic jungle which criminalises professional immigrants and routinely exploits cheap labour.

Those who have tried to cut corners and get the elusive work permits, like Tich Mataz, have been sold out by jealousy locals and thrown out of the country with polite menace.
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I had a call from a friend in England telling me of a serial killer who is apparently targeting female prostitutes in the Ipswich area. Five women are reportedly dead.

I spoke to a friend, a woman, and thought I would have a laugh at her expense. I told her I feared for her life…but the joke was totally lost on her.

“I will be fine,” she said.

Thud!

READ PART THREE OF MATHUTHU'S DIARIES TOMORROW
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