Shaik's Durban BMW cruise Reach For A Dream outing

Still cruising after all these years...yes, the man with the Midas touch, Msholozi's piggy bank, is back in the headlines after nipping down to the café for a pie and some fags. Schabir Shaik might be on his last legs, but at least he's got four new wheels and a Bavarian sedan to get him around.

It's a great story, this: one financial advisor's epic escape from an unjust penal system. Like Papillon, except instead of floating away on a sack of coconuts he's floating away on a lilo in his pool.

The ANC has confirmed that it was deathly ill fraudster Schabir Shaik who was seen driving through Durban this week, saying that the outing was organized by Reach For A Dream. "Comrade Schabir has only years to live," said a spokesman, "and he wanted to see his beloved Durban one last time. And buy some balloons. And a pie and a Coke."

The former financial advisor of President Jacob Zuma was sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud, but was released on medical parole after serving two years in a private clinic after doctors diagnosed him with a fatal condition known as "life", an ailment with a 100-percent mortality rate.

At the time of his release various doctors, many of them with actual qualifications earned at genuine training colleges, panel-beaters and ANC re-education centers, explained that Shaik was in the final stage of "life", with only decades left to live, and urged that he be released from prison to spend his remaining 40 or 50 years with his family at home.

However an alleged sighting of Shaik driving his luxury BMW through Durban this week has again raised questions about his condition.

According to the Democratic Alliance MP who spotted and filmed the alleged outing, the sighting was "manna from white whinger heaven, as if God himself had reached down from the clubhouse of the celestial golf estate" and revealed Shaik to her.

This morning Shaik hit back, describing the alleged video as "a total fabrication", a statement that many are taking seriously as Shaik is considered a world-class authority on total fabrications.

However, the ANC has stepped in to calm the situation, saying that Shaik's outing was organized by Reach For A Dream.

According to spokesman Kickbax Mxenge, the "ANC looks after its own".

"We thought we would do something nice for Comrade Schabir," he explained. "We asked him to make a list of everything he still wanted to experience in life and one final tour of Durban was fourth on the list."

He said the first three choices had included being given back all his money, being appointed Deputy President, and setting fire to everyone who had been unkind to him, but Mxenge said that these had been "impractical for now".

"Which is not to say that Comrade Schabir can't end up as Deputy President," he added. "With this government anything is possible."