Gautrain revealed as slow botched robbery

Gauteng officials have admitted that the massive tunneling project under Johannesburg, thought to be groundwork for the Gautrain, is actually a badly botched heist by a gang of thieves who have been trying to dig their way into the basement of Mr and Mrs Nigel Ferreira of Fourways to steal their flat-screen television and some Springbok memorabilia.

According to a spokesman for Gauteng Transport MEC Durex Ntshenge officials exposed the planned heist during a routine inspection of the drilling- and tunneling machinery yesterday.

"We asked the lead drilling team if the cutter-head was holding up according to specified tolerances, and there was a pause, and then the foreman said he didn't know because they were unemployed fruit pickers who had wandered down the tunnel looking for a job," said spokesman Hotlips Mtshali.

He said officials had become suspicious at this point as none of the workers had any fruit on their persons, and when tested they were unable to confirm whether tomatoes were fruits or vegetables.

"We also exposed them to a guava and they recoiled slightly," said Mtshali.

"It's a normal response, given the vile sandy texture and corpse-like skin of that accursed fruit, but genuine fruit pickers would have been immune."

He said that after another long pause the foreman had yelled, "It's all over boys, save yourselves!" and had tried to flee. However the men had fled towards the tunnel wall instead of the exit, and were detained while they lay concussed on the ground.

Mtshali said the gang had confessed to being involved in an "extremely long and thus far unsuccessful" attempt to tunnel into the Fourways home of Mr and Mrs Nigel Ferreira.

He said that it had been difficult to establish how much the gang had spent on tunneling- and ventilation equipment since they started the heist in 2003, but gang members put the estimate at around R490-million.

He confirmed that the Ferreira's possessions were worth approximately R60,000.

He said that the gang had conceded that continuing the heist probably did not make financial sense.

"They were a bit depressed about it," said Mtshali. "They recognized that they probably should have stopped once they finished the Rosebank station tunnel, but they didn't know how to switch off the tunneling machine."

However, he said, they had continued to hope for a "big pay day" in the Ferreiras' basement.

"There's apparently a Transvaal rugby jersey that Naas Botha once vomited on after he took a spear-tackle to the head," said Mtshali.

"It's probably worth a good few thousand in Pretoria, and at least twenty or thirty bucks in Cape Town."