Nelson Mandela's memorial lesson for procurement

With the focus of the world's media on Nelson Mandela's memorial, it would have been assumed, not only that the security for the world leaders was going to be exceptionally tight, but also that those delivering any 'front-of-house services' would have a gone through a rigorous assessment to demonstrate their capability. Yet, somehow, the platform party included an impostor, a fake sign language translator.

This is the stuff you just couldn't make up, not only was there a serious breach of security (the fake was standing beside Obama behind the security screen) but, if there was some sort of procurement exercise to provide translation services, it broke down completely. Mind you, there was also an official translator on stage although no-one seems to have questioned what was going on.

So we have the procurement of security which seriously failed. It failed not only in that the fake was on stage, but also it appears no-one has the faintest notion who this person is. That's pretty damming stuff.

But to make matters worse, the fake was only waving his arms about and no-one in the 'signing' world has been able to read a word of which he signed. Serious as this saga is, the clip is worth watching as it is very entertaining:

12 Dec: PS so now it has emerged this was a procurement failure - a company with a poor history of performance and no evidence of checking qualifications.