DIY Home Affairs man worked too hard to be mistaken for real thing
PRETORIA. The Ghanaian man arrested in Yeoville for setting up his own Department of Home Affairs office, complete with rubber stamps and men who stood outside and sold pens, says he is confident he will escape charges. “They have accused me of impersonating an official but I was awake and working when they busted me,” he said, “I am not sure how they see any resemblance.”
The man, who has yet to be named, was reportedly making good money by offering a faster and more user-friendly service than the one available through official channels, a task described by experts as ‘one in which it was impossible to fail’.
Senior officials at the real Department of Home Affairs say they have asked detectives interrogating the suspect to find out how he was able to process a passport within a day or produce a marriage certificate within a week.
“We suspect his claims are baseless,” said department spokesperson Edblow Sithole. “In our experience it takes a team of eight people a minimum of six months to process one residency application, so if he is churning out ten in a day then he is clearly a fake.
“Or he really enjoys his work – in which case we will give him a crash course on our procedures and formally ask him to run our office in Arcadia.”
Asked what training was required to work at Home Affairs, Sithole said it could be summed up by three simple rules. “When in charge, blame; when there’s work involved, delegate; and when spoken to, grunt and gesture.”
Sithole said it was no surprise that the arrested man came from Ghana. “That’s the problem with foreigners,” he said. “They do everything faster and cheaper and they end up making South Africans look bad.”
He added that he wouldn’t be surprised if the weekend’s arrest was the first of many. “We suspect the Ghanaians will seek to own the fake ID market in the same way Somalians found their niche with spaza shops, Nigerians as 419 scammers and South Africans as loafers.”
He said it was no surprise that so many South Africans were forced to live and work in England as it was one of the few countries where people were even lazier than here.
Meanwhile a lawyer for the detained man, Atticus Ndlovu, said he was doing his best to get the trial date moved forward.
“The Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court has postponed proceedings until the 28th of June,” he confirmed. “But we are doing our best to get the matter switched to an earlier date.”
He added that he was also trying to get the matter moved to a ‘court’ run by a Rwandan magistrate from his bedroom in Observatory.
http://www.hayibo.com/diy-home-affairs-man-worked-too-hard-to-be-mistaken-real-thing/
PRETORIA. The Ghanaian man arrested in Yeoville for setting up his own Department of Home Affairs office, complete with rubber stamps and men who stood outside and sold pens, says he is confident he will escape charges. “They have accused me of impersonating an official but I was awake and working when they busted me,” he said, “I am not sure how they see any resemblance.”The man, who has yet to be named, was reportedly making good money by offering a faster and more user-friendly service than the one available through official channels, a task described by experts as ‘one in which it was impossible to fail’.
Senior officials at the real Department of Home Affairs say they have asked detectives interrogating the suspect to find out how he was able to process a passport within a day or produce a marriage certificate within a week.
“We suspect his claims are baseless,” said department spokesperson Edblow Sithole. “In our experience it takes a team of eight people a minimum of six months to process one residency application, so if he is churning out ten in a day then he is clearly a fake.
“Or he really enjoys his work – in which case we will give him a crash course on our procedures and formally ask him to run our office in Arcadia.”
Asked what training was required to work at Home Affairs, Sithole said it could be summed up by three simple rules. “When in charge, blame; when there’s work involved, delegate; and when spoken to, grunt and gesture.”
Sithole said it was no surprise that the arrested man came from Ghana. “That’s the problem with foreigners,” he said. “They do everything faster and cheaper and they end up making South Africans look bad.”
He added that he wouldn’t be surprised if the weekend’s arrest was the first of many. “We suspect the Ghanaians will seek to own the fake ID market in the same way Somalians found their niche with spaza shops, Nigerians as 419 scammers and South Africans as loafers.”
He said it was no surprise that so many South Africans were forced to live and work in England as it was one of the few countries where people were even lazier than here.
Meanwhile a lawyer for the detained man, Atticus Ndlovu, said he was doing his best to get the trial date moved forward.
“The Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court has postponed proceedings until the 28th of June,” he confirmed. “But we are doing our best to get the matter switched to an earlier date.”
He added that he was also trying to get the matter moved to a ‘court’ run by a Rwandan magistrate from his bedroom in Observatory.
http://www.hayibo.com/diy-home-affairs-man-worked-too-hard-to-be-mistaken-real-thing/
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