Dear Comrade,

While trawling my local newspaper for government jobs that involve huge amounts of money and very little work, I noticed your advertisement calling for interested persons to apply for the position of National Director of Public Prosecutions.

Let me be clear on one thing. I am nothing if not an interested person. Many of my interests include things that are technically illegal, but you need not worry. I will change these laws once I am in charge.

Primarily, I am interested in finding out what kind of salary I will be earning. I believe the incumbent, Shamila Batohi, gets R125,000 a month in return for popping into the office around 11am, wrestling with Wordle, reassuring the usual suspects that they’re still safe from prosecution, a pre-prandial nap, lunch and back home to work on the memoir.

To be honest – and I think honesty is fairly important if one is to work for the NDPP – the idea of earning R1.5 million a year speaks to me on many different levels and I undertake to spend at least four hours a day in or near the office.

So there’s an ANC-friendly panel that will scrutinise the applications and recommend a shortlist of candidates to the president? This isn’t going to work for me. By the time the panel is done and Ramaphosa has applied what little remains of his mind, I could be in a retirement home for the criminally insane. We need to move fast. I cannot live on hope and slivers of dried rat for months on end.

Although I have no formal legal training, I do have some experience in matters involving the law. For instance, I was charged once under the Police Act and twice under the Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances Act. This afforded me considerable insight into the way prosecutors operate, and I can assure you that when it comes to attending expensive lunches and finagling squid pro quo incentives, whether they be in the form of rough diamonds or unpolished Cambodian whores, I am more than capable of following due process.

Your ad says I have to be a fit and proper person. How fit, exactly? I can walk to the bottle store from my home but often struggle to make it back. Will that do? As for proper, well, that’s debatable, but I do meet most of the requirements to qualify as a genuine non-AI human.

I see there are no fewer than eight (8) different functions attached to the position. Is this even legal? How much responsibility can one person shoulder? No wonder the Batohi woman was such a crashing disaster. I suggest we limit the responsibilities to one (1). Come to work. That’s it. We don’t need to fanny about with appearing in court in person. For a start, I don’t have the temperament for it. If I decide to prosecute someone, it should be a simple matter of me bribing the judge to send the person to prison for as long as I deem fit. If I am expected to argue in court, there will be blood.

I see one of my functions is to “maintain close liaison” with my staff, prosecutors and legal institutions. I presume this means at least one braai a week at my house. I can handle that. Lawyers are known for their love of strong liquor and vulnerable women and I can assure the panel that a good time will be had by all. With me in charge of prosecutions, everyone can relax without fear of being charged with racism, sexism, manslaughter or any of the other fun things that happen at South African braais.

Another function is “preparing comprehensive reports on the operations of the National Prosecuting Authority”. This is an easy one. The NPA has a proud track record of taking years to investigate a case, only for it to fall apart in court under the gentlest of probing by the defence. My reports will be short and to the point. “Failed again.” “No prosecutions this year either.” “Fear and favour as strong as ever.”

Will I be subjected to a security clearance? This might be a problem. When I was younger, I belonged to a neighbourhood gang. Nothing on the scale of Mossad, obviously, but we didn’t allow girls to join and only certain members could be trusted with top-secret information. You will be pleased to know that I was one of them. One afternoon, a senior member of the girls’ gang cornered me in the park – I think it was Charlize Theron – and offered to lift up her skirt in return for a map pinpointing the location of our camp. I cracked like a quail’s egg. But I am stronger now, and the NDPP’s secrets will be safe with me.

I will lie, steal and kill for the NDPP. You won’t find that kind of loyalty in any other government department. Well, apart from defence. And public works. Also health. Oh, and the police. Obviously I will need immunity from prosecution for the rest of my life.

Prosecutorially yours,

Adv Ben Trovato