'It is because I am black'
2007-02-02 08:17
Nicola Jones and Craig Bishop
Pietermaritzburg - "It is because I am black," is what KwaZulu-Natal Premier S'bu Ndebele allegedly yelled on Thursday at a Pietermaritzburg man at the memorial service for murdered historian David Rattray.
The slanging match can be described best as a dramatic interlude to battlefields' expert Rattray's service at Michaelhouse school at Balgowan in the KZN Midlands.
VIP guests attending the service at the exclusive school's chapel were at first startled, then intrigued when KZN tour guide Trevor Sharp, 65, screeched to a halt behind the premier's four-vehicle cavalcade.
He proceeded to angrily harangue the bemused premier for "blowing me off the road".
'Rocketed past'
Sharp told The Witness he had been travelling in his Toyota at 100km/h on his way to the service.
A selection of expensive cars had rocketed past, "at least at 160km/h, with the last vehicle straddling the white line dividing the lanes missing me by two inches".
"I didn't even have time to blink," he said.
Determined not to succumb to South African apathy, the redoubtable Sharp set off in pursuit, caught up with the convoy and started flashing his lights and hooting all the way on to college grounds.
"I got the fright of my life. Everyone knows me as a slowcoach, and they went past me like bullets. I took umbrage. I was shaking.
"That is not the first time either me or my wife have been blasted off the road by people in government vehicles, driving like idiots."
When he arrived at the school, Sharp leapt out of his car and demanded to know what gave the premier the right to travel at such high speeds.
"He was going to a funeral, not an emergency.
"I asked him whether he did not have to comply with the laws of the road, especially being the former KZN transport minister, and whether he shouldn't lead by example."
Sharp claimed the premier started off "being quite nice about it, then lost his temper. He got a little aggressive".
Sharp claimed Ndebele repeatedly had asked whether Sharp had not seen the flashing blue lights on the front car.
Sharp said Ndebele then became flustered, eventually shouting that he was picking on the premier because he was black.
"That is what incensed me," Sharp told The Witness.
'Not reckless speed'
"I said to him that the blue light didn't tell me what colour the driver might have been."
When questioned about the incident, Ndebele's spokesperson, former Witness reporter Jeff Hassan, initially said "he spoke to the premier, that's the end of the story" before adding that the convoy had not been speeding.
"That's not reckless speed. That is their normal speed, especially when it is an emergency," said Hassan.