It’s not every day that you are driven around by a Princess, but she’s running one of our provincial offices, so I feel no sense of guilt in asking her to take me around. For her part, this is something of a special occasion too, as I am being produced as a demonstration that something is actually happening. Appointments are fixed up with a range of Ministers, Mayors and other dignitaries.
Being a Princess – the daughter of a senior chief who has one of the main roads in the town named after him – has its uses, but is not, apparently enough to protect you from being stopped by traffic police. If I hadn’t been in the front seat, next to her, they say the police wouldn’t have stopped us. As it was they see a rather posh looking white Jeep approaching, with a suited white person in the front seat. Clearly a good target.
What follows next had all the qualities of a half-paced French mime. The policemen stand in the middle of the road – two of them – making it very clear that she could not pass. One goes to her window and demands to see her documents. She behaves politely, but cannot immediately find them all. As I recall they needed to see her driving licence and three other pieces of paper. As she finds them, one in her handbag, two behind the visor on the passenger side, one in the cubby-hole, and hands them to the glowering policemen at her window he pointedly keeps them. He shows them to his boss, who then instructs him to inspect the car. She has to put on the lights and demonstrate the indicators and brake lights, while he walks ponderously around the car.
It is becoming clear that they have picked upon a tough target: everything is in order – until, AHA! – they spot a crack in the mirror on the passenger door. It’s still usable, but the crack gives them the opening they need. Negotiations start in earnest. She says it was broken by her son only three days ago. They say, so what? She says, I don’t have money. We have a meeting with the Mayor in ten minutes, she says, and anyway I’ll get it mended.
Nothing doing. They are now on the passenger side, standing looking at her with expectant eyes, desperately waiting for her to start negotiating. She is so angry she refuses to budge. They say that until this matter has been resolved, they are going to keep the documents.
We drive off, not wanting to be late for the important meeting. She is trembling with anger and a little bit of fear. We all wonder whether they will still be in the same place when we return.
After the meeting she does a lot of telephoning. Our protocol person (i.e. person number two in an office of 2) is summoned. She and the office driver turn up just after us at the scene of the crime where, to our relief, the police are still standing. The protocol then starts the negotiations. Meanwhile, the princess starts serious phone calls. It must have been about ten minutes later when the protocol person takes a phone call and passes the phone to the senior policeman. Quite suddenly, the negotiations stop, and the policemen amble across to give the Princess her documents. “How about a Coke?” they mumble. “Nothing doing,” she says, “have a nice day,” and we drive off.
This is the source of the happy ending: the police are running ads on the television, urging people not to pay bribes, and urging anyone who is being forced to do so to ring a certain number. She doesn’t need that particular number, but using the same principle had rung the Chief of Police whom she knows. He had then rung the protocol who had passed her phone to the police.
The experience had clearly shaken my princess, but it was a nice to know that the monster of corruption can be tamed.
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