South Africa”s VIP prisoners have been having a whale of a time – Tony Yengeni served a mere 4 months of his four year sentence for fraud and corruption, and in the time he was incarcerated, had a double bed & big screen TV delivered by a local furniture shop, (installed in the sick bay where he slept) which was right next to the OFFICE they rigged up for him, where he received a daily stream of SA regime ministers, ANC luminaries and various other communist groupies. His loving wife had home-cooked or restaurant-prepared food delivered to him daily, after which Yengeni enjoyed conjugal rights, all with the blessing of the SA Correctional Services department.

As for Shabir Shaik, things are just dandy, thank you! Shaik, who was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for fraud and corruption, was sent off to the slammer in November 2006. Barely a week after his arrival, Shaik was transferred to an expensive private hospital (St Augustine’s) WHERE HE HAS REMAINED SINCE. Yes dear reader, Mr Shaik has spent more than sixty days in private hospital stay, with an (conservatively) estimated cost of R 60 000 which will likely be footed by YOU, the conscientious tax payer. Mr Shaik, formerly the epitome of health, has suddenly developed numerous ailments, such as hay fever, a mild depression, blood pressure, sore gums and a whole host of serious, life-threatening maladies.

As with Yengeni’s prison life of privilege, St Augustine’s hospital has become Shaik’s de facto corporate headquarters, where he receives an endless stream of regime ministers, party apparatchiks, family and friends. The Pretoria News reports that despite hospitals being grim places where people sit around and worry about the condition of their loved ones, this is not the status quo at all – it claims that an avalanche of letters and phone calls to newspapers (by stunned visitors, doctors and nurses) are reporting quite the opposite – Mr Shaik is having a huge jol!

According to one staffer, Shaik goes for a daily walk to the hospital car park at around 5 PM, where he holds court with numerous friends and associates. Then, at around 7 PM when it’s nice and dark, a big black Mercedes swings into the parking lot, collects Mr Shaik who then disappears home for the night – every night. Judge Nathan Erasmus, who heads up the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons, coyly said that he was “monitoring the situation”. A medical practitioner working at St Augustine’s was quoted as saying “In my opinion this is a case of a crooked patient and crooked doctors.”

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