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NOT many people make you long for the charm and considered intellectualism of ex-government spokesman Jimmy Manyi.

There are many good government spindoctors. But for every silver-tongued Mac Maharaj or Jabulani Sikhakhane, theres a Lumka Oliphant soaking up your tax rands. If you havent heard of Lumka Oliphant, its your loss.

If youve ever had a parking place stolen, had a teller shut his till as you reach the front, or been rained on as you stepped out your car, Oliphant is there to shake her fists and cry racism.

By day, Oliphant is spokeswoman for Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini; by night, she is an ex-journalist, ready to lament how her passion has been poisoned by white thinking.

Now, sure there are still vestiges of racism. But Oliphants numbskull claim that racism lay behind our decision to question Dlamini spending tax rands on full-page adverts defending the (white-owned) Net1 over a R10bn tender in which bribes are said to have changed hands was particularly dopey.

Its not a bad tactic: every department mired in misspending and corruption claims needs a proficient racism-crier. Questions too tough, or your answers too thin? No problem: the answer is racism, whatever the question.

Ms Oliphant used to be a run-of-the-mill hack at City Press. One of the last articles she wrote was entitled Omo a tad too white, a scrupulously reported piece about apparent racism in washing powder advertisements.

Then in 2011, Oliphant wrote an article lamenting racial divisions at schools, called White South Africans have mastered the art of racism.

She talked of how whites have found strategic ways to prevent blacks from living in harmony with them because her child was put on a waiting list for a private school for three years.

The R20,000 acceptance fee and requirement that fees be paid upfront were clear evidence: I ended up telling the principal that he was deliberately keeping black children out of the school, she wrote, triumphantly.

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LAST WORD: Every shady deal needs a racism-crier