I wrote The Plettenberg Bay Ratepayers and Residents’ Association (PBRRA) last week, to ask that they attend the Bitou Council and Administration to recover the R6-odd million owed by Municipal Manager Mbulelo Memani, attorney Bulelani Bans, and Acting CFO Felix Lötter.

I learned that “Executive” Mayor Jessica Kamkam, Deputy “Executive” Mayor Nokuzola Kolwapi, Speaker Mavis Busakwe, Memani, and Lötter have now blocked my emails.

The amounts owed by the municipal manager and his attorney, and by Mr. Felix Martin Lötter, of dubious designation, to the people of Bitou are R4,654,171.46; and R274,177.87; and R1,096,711.46, respectively, calculated at 10% interest per annum, for 337 days since 1 May last year.

That’s R6,025,060.79 - an outrageous amount for a small municipality to be paying into their pockets even if it were legally justifiable. Helen Zille called the original capital amounts—R 4,243,752 and R250,000—“vast amounts of public money”. It is, today, some 34% vaster.

Municipal leadership, madam mayor, has long reduced me to a chronic state of addlement, yet this singularly inscrutable fiscal debacle has elevated me to the rank of arch-discombobulate.

The high court orders that money be recovered “forthwith”, or “forthright” by attorney Bulelani Bans, and, eventually, “expeditiously” by your sudden awakening in early March.  And yet, 170 days later, you have not received payment from MM Mbulelo Memani, and you have not even demanded payment from Bans, and you are, apparently, not even interested to pursue Lötter, not included in the order, but owing as evidently as is Memani.

What is wrong with you woman‽

Zille refers to you as one of “the very best and brightest individuals South Africa has to offer… guided by the DA’s values and principles of freedom, fairness, opportunity, and diversity,” and calls your appointment “meritocratic”? Meretricious, more like, and “brightest” is simply beyond comprehension, I shouldn’t wonder.

Is the architecture of obligation so complex as to elude your grasp, or is it merely an inconvenient abstraction to your wanting comprehension?

Psychologists speak of avoidance behaviour for actions taken to prevent or escape an unpleasant stimulus. This behavior is most commonly observed in young children, typically ranging from toddlerhood (around 1-2 years old) through early elementary school years (around 6-7 years old).

The child might be using this behavior to cope with negative emotions triggered by what they anticipate hearing or are currently hearing (e.g., anger, criticism, sadness, anxiety). Blocking the auditory input can be a way to shut down the emotional distress—emotional regulation.

In a psychoanalytic context, this could be seen as a primitive defense mechanism to avoid confronting something unpleasant or threatening—defensive mechanism.

The child may have learned that covering their ears can stop someone from talking to them or reduce the likelihood of hearing something they don't want to hear—learned behavior. This ain’t gonna fly with me, boys and girls.

After years of waiting for consequences for the looting of local councils, and for the punishment of Raybin Figland for his sexual extortion of a young girl, you sit with your hands in your pockets, whistling like idle schoolboys.

R6 million is apparently too rich for your blood, but your failed targeting of former Speaker of Bitou council Johann Brummer over the past decade, at a cost of millions of Rands in court fees, to suppress his criticism of this culture of impunity, was somehow an easier bill to pay.

Perhaps we can await an MP or MPL seat for these star pupils, just was handed out for Conrad Poole, Memory Booysen and Eleanor Bouw-Spies, whose conduct and complicity in shady dealings was known only too intimately by both you and yours truly.

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