THE Western Cape ANC has justifiably raised concerns about the provincial government's award of tenders worth about R600 million to the collapsing construction company, Filcon.

It is an embarrassing affair which once again suggests that "dodgy" is the sine qua non of the construction sector. Filcon, which filed for business rescue earlier this month, had been granted contracts that included the building and refurbishment of houses in Mannenberg and Atlantis. The future of these service delivery projects hang in the balance.

The ANC Western Cape chairman Marius Fransman has made the most of this opportunity and, accusing the DA-controlled provincial government of maladministration, told a press conference on Wednesday: "Next week we will be starting a process that will be the launching of a Promotion of Access to Information Act demand for information from the Premier's office, the start of a police investigation and requesting the President to proclaim that the Special Investigation Unit investigates."

That, by the way, is "next week" when we go to the polls. Perhaps the ANC has abandoned its campaign to win back the Western Cape and can now devote its full attention to such things. But, as if this "process" wasn't enough, Fransman has also warned that the party would consider approaching the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, to investigate the matter.

There is a degree of hypocrisy about all this. A whopping great chunk of it, actually. 

For a start, Fransman appears to have ignored the fact that there are swathes of the country under shoddy, collapsing homes as a result of the cronyism and illegal construction deals awarded by corrupt ANC administrations. 

The low-cost houses slung up by Durban's vulgar "power couple", Sbu and Shauwn Mpisane, are an obvious example. The latter is a convicted fraudster, and her Zikhulise Cleaning, Maintenance and Transport Company has built the worst homes in all of KwaZulu-Natal. Many have been demolished as unsafe and many of the contracts have been declared illegal as they had been irregularly awarded. 

Despite this, the Mpisanes continue to be awarded tenders worth hundreds of millions of rand. Zikhulise has been listed as one of eThekwini municipality's top suppliers, having reportedly secured R445 million in contracts in the 2012/13 financial year alone.

Fransman's threat of referring the Filcon matter to the Public Protector is brazenly specious given the ruling party's sustained attacks on Madonsela in the wake of her Nkandla report.

One of the more ridiculous slurs on her integrity has come from former ambassador to Cuba, Phatse Justice Piitso, who charged that "the leading most influential world magazine Times [had] nominated [Madonsela] as amongst the top most hundred influential men and women in the world" for all the wrong reasons: among other things, Time had mistakenly suggested the Public Protector had spoken to corruption in high office because - ahem! - there was no corruption in high office.

But back to the Filcon saga, which has thrown up an interesting e-mail exchange between "community activist" or pest, Colin Arendse, and the outgoing Western Cape MEC for Public Works and Transport, Robin Carlisle.

Arendse wrote to Carlisle last weekend and accused him of illegally awarding tenders to Filcon. Several more e-mails followed in which Arendse also misquoted Carlisle from a press clipping. Carlisle's response was to liken Arendse unto an anus. 

Not as formally as that, of course. What Carlisle actually wrote, as The Cape Times put it, was, "Dear A******. Check the article. I never said that. Regards."

Here at the Mahogany Ridge we suspect the six asterisks were supplied by the newspaper and not Carlisle. From this we can safely presume that the honorific in question was "hole" preceded by "ass" (which is not the beast of burden). 

This is deplorable as it suggests that a low American colloquialism has crept into official provincial correspondence. It has no place there. English is one of our official languages and the English version of the term - requiring seven asterisks - would have been the correct choice for Carlisle. It is certainly the better of the two, a far more earthy and powerful insult, as the Americanism has been rendered quite inoffensive and harmless through overuse in the popular culture. 

Arendse has nevertheless taken umbrage as Carlisle had used the term in his official rather than personal capacity and is to lodge a complaint of misconduct with the Speaker of the Western Cape Legislature, Richard Majola. 

This is regrettable. Politics is an ugly business, and murder and thieving are openly tolerated, indeed revered in our public life. But no-one has time for sneaks and their whining, tattle-tale nonsense. Standards are certainly dropping.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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