De Lille’s fence borders on the ridiculous – not to mention its cost

If it’s true that good fences make good neighbours, then relations between SA and Zimbabwe seem to be at an all-time low.

It all began in the middle of March or, as we remember it now, last century, when public works minister Patricia de Lille announced that her department was spending R37m on 40km of fencing as part of “emergency measures" to beef up security at the Beitbridge border post between the two countries.

Inevitably, that little piece of news was swallowed up and forgotten in the three or four decades that have passed since March.

But on Monday, the fence was back in the news. A picture, widely circulated on social media and said to show a section of the fence, revealed a length of laughably puny mesh and razor wire, sliced open with the casual ease and confidence of a cadre cutting into his second chocolate eclair of the morning as he listens to a debate on radical economic transformation.

Now, we can argue about the necessity of national borders and about the history, politics and economics of human migration. But if you’ve decided borders are, in fact, a thing, and that they need to halt or at least check the movement of human beings, why would you then erect a fence that can only stop very unathletic chickens and, depending on the prevailing breeze, some plastic bags?

Indeed, De Lille’s fence seems almost insulting to the ingenuity and determination of the people who are trying to get through it. I mean, if you’re risking prison to get into SA, surely you’d have the foresight to bring wire-cutters rather than, say, embroidery scissors or plastic cutlery? Just how incompetent does De Lille think our neighbours are?

But the real question, of course, isn’t about people. It’s about numbers. Specifically, just how the hell — and who the hell — did De Lille manage to pay almost R1m a kilometre for something that looks as if it was slung together on Sunday night after the dog ate the other one.

The minister has announced that additional troops are being sent to the border, perhaps to shore up the hole with strips of loo paper sewn together with cobwebs, and that her ministry is “considering additional deterring methods, such as surveillance, sensors and alarms”.

Meanwhile, in other news, if you are in the surveillance, sensor or alarm business, and have the ear of government, Christmas is coming in May this year ...