Here I sit in yet another power blackout. And as I fumble around in the dark, looking for a torch, a candle, a match…. I fight to suppress my anger. My anger at this gross inconvenience, my anger that I was not given a warning that the lights would go out, my utter despair that this is the third blackout in four days, but worst of all, my frustration that I am taking it lying down. Perhaps I too have been infected by the malaise of extreme tolerance and acceptance of inadequacies, perhaps a ‘curl up and die’ attitude which is seemingly all too African in its nature.
Then I remember how many traffic lights were out of order as I drove home. The maze of unrepaired potholes I had to negotiate through the suburban roads. The number of blocked storm drains which have helped to turn the roads into rivers in the recent heavy rains.
I wonder how it is that I have become so uncritically tolerant and unjustifiably accepting. Perhaps it is my acceptance that within the skewed social dynamics of this new South Africa, change will take time and I must hope that things will resolve sometime. But sometime is now, 20 years after our first open elections. I can fully understand the frustrations of all those people in Hebron and Mothotlung who took to the streets in protest about unfulfilled promises of water and services. I can understand such utter despair. But unlike the people in those communities I am not given to taking to the streets, to singing and dancing, building barricades in the street, trashing buildings and goading the policemen sent in to keep the peace.
For me the pen is still mightier than the sword and this is my outburst, my toyi-toyi, my protest against those who are empowered by my hard-earned rates and taxes to provide services to me and my fellow citizens. The vital services of electricity, water, roads, street lights, storm drains and traffic lights.
I am told by the faceless recorded voice on the Joburg customer line that ‘power…. outages are being experienced in…’ followed by a list of dozen suburbs (not including mine, even though I am in the dark), and that technicians are working on the problem. No information about the nature of blackout (cable theft, I can understand, is beyond the control of City Power, but tell me!), no helpful guidelines about the expected duration of the blackout, no promise of further updates (a new recording every hour perhaps), no real attempt to persuade me that City Power cares about my difficulties. With such scant attempt to win my confidence as a valuable customer, what am I left to conclude? That those whose job it is to look after my interests are not interested in me as their customer, or are they just not up to the task?
Rant over. Now let’s take time for more considered reflection.
If the 20 years of ‘transformation’ has resulted in there being people in key service provision jobs who do not have the skills or the ability to carry out these essential tasks, then it is surely time that we focus on this particular problem. Never mind the broad ideological rhetoric and open promises of political parties and vote seeking politicians. Let’s get people in the key positions who can do the job.
Short of doing it ourselves, let us make it our business to find out where the competent people are. And here I am not suggesting that all people in public service are incompetent, but by the results I am seeing, many probably are.
Let us ask our politicians, our councilors, our public representatives, our residents associations our NGOs. Let’s find where the most competent people are. Then if it is through political parties that we have to vote at the forthcoming elections, let’s interrogate them about their competencies and their access to competent people. Because at this stage in our country with its crumbling infrastructure, we need less political ideology and blind loyalty to party political spin. What we need are people on the ground who can do the job. And unless we demand that or our elected officials, nothing I fear will change much after 7 May.
For my part, if there was a Competence Party, with a proven track record of having provided services and staffed with people who are capable of doing the job I require of them, then I would vote for them without hesitation.
ReinventSouthAfrica 