Love him or hate him (I won’t comment on which viewpoint I hold) one must admire Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s ‘networking’ skills on his latest overseas trip.

Mbalula took a break from inspiring the Proteas cricket team to head over to the Big Apple and take in the NBA All Star Weekend. His Twitter account was a veritable who’s who of big-name ballers as he rubbed shoulders with a few famous faces.

Yes, that is the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy, now going by the more economical P Diddy.

Here we have Floyd Mayweather making his acquaintance with Fikile. That’s the same Floyd who is almost without equal in the ‘grotesque displays of wealth‘ game.

So did Mbalula rent a car and get to grips with New York’s congested traffic? Think again sunshine – it’s limo time with other luminaries such as Metro FM DJ Tbo Touch.

But how does one fund such a lavish lifestyle? Oh hang on, it was a business trip. This from IOL:

…Mbalula said: “Earlier today, we were invited to a luncheon by NBA Africa to discuss partnerships in the development and socio-economic upliftment of young people through sport, basketball in particular.

Ah, good, here I was thinking we were paying him far too much for the full-time job of tweeting how grand he is.

[source:iol]