• Although the eight Licensing Authorities all adminster the same
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legislation, each has an individual style. The imminent arrival of three new LAs will no doubt add to the variety. But I doubt whether they will follow the example of their opposite numbers in the Kingdom of Swaziland.
A reader tells me he recently attended a hearing of the Road Transportation Board in Mbabane, the Swazi capital The weather was hot, so in common with most others in the room, he removed his jacket while waiting for proceedings to start.
When the three board members entered the President commanded that jackets should be replaced "while we call down the Lord's blessings on our deliberations today". After an extempore prayer by the President jackets were again removed and licences were granted and refused — presumably in accordance with Divine wishes.
Swaziland's road transport licensing system has (for better or worse) not been Liberalised. The reader says it was quite a nostalgic experience to hear arguments so familiar in British Traffic Courts in the 1960s repeated in the exotic Southern African surroundings. He was also impressed by the way the shorthand writer coped with the tendency of witnesses to switch, often in mid-sentence, from English to the local language siSwati and back again.