I cannot vouch for their veracity, but they are good for a giggle.

Never a dull day in Africa... Here are some of the funnier excerpts from the local papers:

The Cape Times:

"I have promised to keep his identity confidential,' said Jack Maxim, a spokesperson for the Sandton Sun Hotel, Johannesburg, "but I can confirm that he is no longer in our employment".
"We asked him to clean the lifts and he spent four days on the job. When I asked him why, he replied: 'Well, there are forty of them, two on each floor, and sometimes some of them aren't there'. Eventually, we realised that he thought each floor had a different lift, and he'd cleaned the same two twelve times. We had to let him go. It seemed best all round. I understand he is now working for GE Lighting."

The Star, Johannesburg:

"The situation is absolutely under control," Transport Minister Ephraem Magagula told the Swaziland parliament in Mbabane. "Our nation's merchant navy is perfectly safe. We just don't know where it is, that's all."
Replying to an MP's question, Minister Magagula admitted that the landlocked country had completely lost track of its only ship, the 'Swazimar': "We believe it is in a sea somewhere. At one time, we sent a team of men to look for it, but there was a problem with drink and they failed to find it, and so, technically, yes, we've lost it a bit. But I categorically reject all suggestions of incompetence on the part of this government.
"The Swazimar is a big ship painted in the sort of nice bright colours you can see at night. Mark my words, it will turn up. The right honourable gentleman opposite is a very naughty man, and he will laugh on the other side of his face when my ship comes in."

The Standard, Kenya:

"What is all the fuss about?" Weseka Sambu asked a hastily convened news conference at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. "A technical hitch like this could have happened anywhere in the world. You people are not patriots. You just want to cause trouble."
Sambu, a spokesman for Kenya Airways, was speaking after the cancellation of a through flight from Kisumu, via Jomo Kenyatta, to Berlin: "The forty-two passengers had boarded the plane ready for take-off, when the pilot noticed one of the tyres was flat. Kenya Airways did not possess a spare tyre, and unfortunately the airport nitrogen canister was empty. A passenger suggested taking the tyre to a petrol station for inflation, but unluckily the jack had gone missing so we couldn't get the wheel off.
"Our engineers tried heroically to reinflate the tyre with a bicycle pump, but had no luck, and the pilot even blew into the valve with his mouth, but he passed out.
"When I announced that the flight had to be abandoned, one of the passengers, Mr Mutu, suddenly struck me about the face with a life-jacket whistle and said we were a national disgrace. I told him he was being ridiculous, and that there was to be another flight in a fortnight. And, in the meantime, he would be able to enjoy the scenery around Kisumu, albeit at his own expense."

From a Zimbabwean newspaper

While transporting mental patients from Harare to Bulawayo, the bus driver stopped at a roadside shebeen for a few beers. When he got back to his vehicle, he found it empty, with the 20 patients nowhere to be seen. Realizing the trouble he was in if the truth were uncovered, he halted his bus at the next bus stop and offered lifts to those in the queue.
Letting 20 people board, he then shut the doors and drove straight to the Bulawayo mental hospital, where he hastily handed over his charges, warning the nurses that they were particularly excitable.
Staff removed the furious passengers; it was three days later that suspicions were roused by the consistency of stories from the 20. As for the real patients: nothing more has been heard of them and they have apparently blended comfortably back into Zimbabwean society.

Wow! Nobody could make this @#$% up.

Mark

Guess who said this ???? ..... AND a lot more ....

"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." --Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001

Why does this not seem unusual.....oh yea......its Africa!

Truth that is stranger than fiction!

This is Africa:
As o/c police Eastern province, Uganda my father was also in charge of the local prison at Mbale. One morning he was called to the prison to sort out a problem. The day before a crew of prisoners with their armed warder were picked up by a Police tender ( 1/2 ton truck) and driven to a bush Police station to do some work. On the way the Police driver had taken the opportunity to earn some pocket money and had picked up a fare paying passenger from the side of the road. Back then buses did not have a schedule so Africans would wait by the road for as long as it took for the bus to come by.
After the job was finished at the sub station the crew had baled into the tender and headed home. Again the Police driver had shown his enterprise and picked up another fare paying passenger headed to Mbale. With cash jingling in his pocket the driver stopped at a beer drink and treated everybody. There at an illegal beer drink was a Police driver, an armed prison warder, a civilian passenger and half a dozen prisoners in prison uniform. Once the money was spent it was time to go. One problem, the driver had consumed so much that he was now comatose and he was the only one who knew how to drive. Fortunately one prisoner had refused to partake of the liquid dynamite and was sober so he was elected to drive. The Police driver was placed in the bed of the truck and all climbed aboard. The truck had a standard transmission and I can only imagine the chaos as a bunch of drunks told the one sober man what to do based on their observations of what happened when a vehicle was driven. How they made the 60 miles back to town was not told, but they did and arrived back at the prison about midnight. Now the prisoners wanted in but the guards at the prison were not pleased and did not want to let them in. A fight started and at the end the prisoners were let in. The next morning the Police vehicle was still parked outside the prison with a sleeping Police driver in the bed. A great deal has to be said for English vehicular engineering as the transmission was still good, so was the clutch. There were some dents and there was foliage hanging off the mirrors and a few other places.