In South Africa, the expensive cars and lavish lifestyle of black politicians often make headlines. However, the small town of Eshowe in Kwazulu-Natal provice was abuzz last week with the news of two black VIPs crashing a Ferrari and Lamborghini into each other.
When a white, Mr. Tony Simpson, tried to take a photograph of the damaged vehicles, he was racially abused with the words: "What you want here, white man, you can't afford a car like this!"
A wedding ceremony held by a so-called "ANC family" - the ANC is South Africa's ruling party, receiving 65% of the votes - was held at the sports centre in Eshowe where the field was trashed with broken bottles and glasses. After the wedding Romeo Mbambo, owner of the yellow Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 and the driver of the Ferrari F430 decided to race one another along the main street, Kangella street..
Mbambo is a former assassin of the ANC's main rival in black politics, the Inkatha Freedom Party, who received amnesty from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He and six other black men had been involved in 56 incidences of violence in which 100 people had been killed in the late eighties and early nineties. Nowadays he supplies protection services to VIPs in the coastal city of Durban.
The damage to the two Italian sports cars is estimated at R1 million (about $130 000), according to a spokesman for Lamborghini South Africa.
The flashy wedding in Eshowe, attended by ANC politicians, could have been mistaken for a luxury-car show with Mercedes coupés, Porsches, as well a brand-new Ferrari with temporary plates vying for attention in the parking lot.
Apparently Mbambo and his fellow racer were on their way to a nearby dam to take pictures of the bride and groom when their driving skills proved inadequate. The drivers of the two sports cars - with import duties worth about R4,7 million ($600 000) in South Africa - were unharmed but a lamppost was badly damaged, to the chagrin of the local taxpayers who would have to repair it.
Some of the white bystanders who wanted to take photos with their cellphones were smacked and assaulted while the black police on the scene simply looked on, doing nothing.
The police also had no official record of the accident, as Mbambo had said that "he would deal with it himself".
