Galago - The Stiff Report

This report is based on one provided by the Transvaal Agricultural Union. It shockingly illustrates how in many spheres South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, is misgoverning South Africa..
The football World Cup attracted many visitors and celebrities to our shores. These included ex-US President Bill Clinton, movie stars like Leonardo di Caprio, Morgan Freeman, John Travolta and other distinguished guests who honoured our country with their presence. It is a shame that their eyes had been blinkered because they were universally held in the thrall of our first ANC president, Nelson Mandela. Consequently they didn’t venture beyond the 5-star hotels and the magnificent newly-built soccer stadiums to discover for themselves the real and authentic South Africa.
It is a shame they didn’t visit Sannieshof — a quiet little dorp in the North West Province — to see for themselves the dire straits the residents — both blacks and whites — had been reduced to after 16 years of the ANC’s misrule. One can be sure that Mr Mandela had not enlightened them about his party’s appalling failings at Sannieshof and other towns like it. Yet it presented an amazing opportunity, where the ANC government’s capacity to govern for the peoples’ benefit could have been more accurately judged — instead of at a series of football matches — no matter how outstanding the organisation was.
It is puerile to judge the success barometer of the ANC government by the success of the World Cup. A country can only be properly judged on how it is run on a day-to-day basis and whether its iconic rulers— basking in the warmth of the soccer spotlight — have truly achieved anything for the mass of people they purport to have represented during the ‘struggle years’.
Let us look at municipalities, the successful running of which is taken for granted in most urban centres of the world. Cleaning streets, rubbish removal, the maintenance of the sewerage system, repairing the roads — elementary one could rightly say. But this has not been the case in South Africa. After inheriting a world class local government structure in 1994, the ANC has destroyed — or is still working at destroying — those structures so effectively.
All this made nonsense of the ANC’s 2009 pre-election slogan of ‘a better life for all’.
Local government in the ANC’s South Africa is epitomized by the travesty of Sannieshof. It is worth telling the world that national and international euphoria about iconic birthdays and the success of the World Cup, is not only misplaced, but is skewed. If the ANC government cannot properly run a rural municipality, how can they scoop the credit for running the World Cup? The ANC is responsible for the degradation of South Africa’s municipalities, to say nothing about other arms of government? Is this a legacy that deserves to be lauded and applauded?
The residents of Sannieshof were forced by circumstances to take up the slack caused by recalcitrant and incompetent ANC councillors. Letters to the council went unanswered for months, even years on end. Talks led nowhere, only to promises that were never kept. There was no maintenance, sewerage pumps were broken, the streets were rubbish and sewerage strewn and punctuated with potholes, while water supplies were not only polluted but sporadic in delivery. Municipal boreholes were not working and the water was contaminated, storm water drains were blocked and all of the town’s 1, 699 water meters were out of order.
In November 2007, the ratepayers of Sannieshof, Delareyville, Ottosdal, plus the surrounding farms that comprised the Tswaing Municipality, decided that they had had enough and declared a dispute with the municipality about sanitation and the lack of potable water.
Calling themselves the Sannieshof Residents Ratepayers Union (SIBU), under the leadership of Ms Carien Visser, they decided to hold back municipal utility payments and to fix the problems themselves. Residents agreed to pay their rates to SIBU, not to the council. Instead of hanging their heads in shame, the ANC-controlled Tswaing’s municipal manager took Mrs. Visser to court ‘because what Ms Visseris doing is illegal’. This was despite SIBU’s initiative having saved the towns from collapse. Sannieshof’s rates and taxes were around R21.7 million in arrears. The two neighbouring towns owed R27.2 and R46.7 million respectively.
SIBU had right on its side because after two years of complaining the council had made no attempt whatsoever to respond. With five workers supplemented by a few volunteers, SIBU became a municipality within a municipality. It had clout because it had money. Residents learned to stand together, across the racial divide. SIBU took the local black townships under its wing and attended to their complaints. The black residents willingly joined hands with their white neighbours to face up to the ANC’s arrogant non-performance. Typically the ANC-run council had abandoned the blacks. There were only three public water taps for more than 1500 residents and only one was in working order. A black township resident took it upon herself to repair one of the broken taps, but was reprimanded by the local councillor because she was ‘interfering with the work of municipal officials’. There was no municipal sanitation service — residents had to make do with shallow holes dug next to their makeshift homes. Most residents in the black areas didn’t pay rates and taxes, because during the pre-election campaign they were told that it was acceptable to withhold payments.
Ms Visser and her committee had to use a fire brigade truck to get water to black township dwellers. Municipal officials had declared that R2 million was required to repair a pump and cable, but SIBU got down and repaired it for R12, 000. Next Ms Visser and her team tackled the Waste Water Treatment Works which was unserviceable. The committee spent R45, 000 servicing the pump and another R20, 000 repairing the black township’s sewerage pump. While this was ongoing an officer of the council — supported by a contingent of police — warned Ms Visser that she would be prosecuted for trespassing. She was arrested and taken to the police station where a case of trespassing was opened against her. When she arrived at court, however, it was to find that the case had been thrown out by a thankfully sane magistrate.
All this made nonsense of the ANC’s 2009 pre-election slogan of ‘a better life for all’.
Despite a 2009 report issued by the government’s Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) underscoring the critical state of affairs prevailing in South African local government, of the country’s 283 municipalities, 80% were experiencing problems with sanitation and potable water and in the majority of cases there has no clean audit approved. The ANC has continued to ignore its own warnings. Its commitment to place its own (unqualified) cadres (Soviet style) in public positions has blinded it to its duty to supply a better life for all that it frequently promises. President Jacob Zuma is deceiving the public when he says that government ‘will apply World Cup success strategies to increase the strategic focus of government’ and that government will identify ‘ the key outputs and activities required to achieve the outcome’. These are just words and in government appointment advertisement after another, departments declare there must be ‘employment equity (EE)’ must be observed — that means no whites need bother to apply. Yet many of the positions advertised are for senior positions in hospitals, government departments in general and for municipal managers.
There are far too few skilled blacks around to fill the positions, so they are mostly filled by the appointment of unskilled but politically favoured applicants. It is worth noting that by 2006, 79 municipalities out of 231 were not employing a single qualified civil engineer. South Africa’s six major metropoles had only 732 civil engineers between them to serve populations of many millions. What is even more ominous is that in the early 1980s there were 30, 000 registered engineering apprentices, but by 2005 this had dropped to 2, 000. Who is going to fix things at municipalities when those men currently in office reach retirement age?
Surely not more of those unskilled ANC cadres?