Things fall apart, but literally, in this town

[BBSA]

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/.../Things-fall-apart-but-literally-in-this-town

At 3PM on October 26 life was hell on Sutherland Street, in Mthatha (formerly Umtata) Nothing worked. The electricity was out and none of the town's traffic lights worked.

The road into the town was gridlocked. So was the road out. In the middle of the town, mayhem ensued.

Drivers were supposed to give each other turns at getting through intersections, treating every traffic light as a four-way stop. The taxi drivers did not adhere to the unwritten rules of the road.

The rest of the drivers beeped and tried to block the taxi drivers.

Every time I pass through Mthatha, my heart sinks. I have been going to the Eastern Cape regularly since 1994, and every time I see a glimpse of hope, the next time I arrive I am plunged into despair. Things always seem to fall apart there.

Last year, the Sunday Times wrote about the sheer mess that was the local municipality: rubbish collection collapsed, electricity provision non-existent for months on end, water provision at a dangerous point.

The picture painted by that report was so dark, so desperate, that Minister of Defence Lindiwe Sisulu mobilised her forces and went on a clean-up of the town. A year later, I could not help but feel pain at the piles of rubble in and outside the town.

In the run-up to the 1999 election, I followed Thabo Mbeki, at the time the president of the ANC, to Mthatha to speak at a meeting. It was a meeting unlike the ones he had spent that long and exhausting day addressing - his audiences rural, uneducated people - because it was full of the elite of Mthatha.

A man called Marshall Siwana asked Mbeki to send the national government to the area to help solve its problems.

Mbeki answered that the educated people at the meeting needed to start taking responsibility and help their town, and thereby themselves.

The national government alone was not going to help the people of Mthatha, Mbeki said.

What causes the destruction of places like Mthatha? It is not mere incompetence. Local elites rush to put their snouts into the trough are a big part of the problem.

The arrest last week of John Block, the ANC's Northern Cape provincial chairman, on charges of fraud, money laundering and corruption provides a clue as to why provincial elites are part of the massive problems that bedevil us.

The charges against Block, a long-serving ANC leader and finance MEC, relate to tenders awarded for water purification equipment for the provincial department of health worth R42-million.

Block is also being investigated for contraventions of the Public Finance Management Act in connection with procurement irregularities on tenders worth R200-million.

In the same week that I was in the Eastern Cape, two weeks ago, All Saints Hospital, between Ngcobo and Mthatha, had a massive water crisis because residents were diverting its water for their own use.

The Sunday Times reported that patients and staff at the hospital, which serves about 150000 people, "were forced to endure 10 days of unhygienic hell after their municipal water supply was stolen by thirsty neighbours".

"The situation became chaotic as bloody linen piled up at the hospital. Fifty babies were delivered in the maternity ward during that period.

"Emergency water was trucked to the hospital but proved to be insufficient, so more water had to be drawn from a nearby river, but it was unsuitable for use in the hospital laundry," the newspaper said.

Why did the residents steal the hospital's water? The newspaper said that there are taps in the village but they do not always work. Resident Hombakazi Poswayo said his family of eight drive to collect water in Khalinyanga, 5km away.

And there you have it. A tender was probably awarded to a supplier at an inflated price. The supplier did the job badly so that he could bribe those who gave him the tender. The taps run dry. The people redirect water from the hospital. Poor patients die.

This is the long hand of corruption. The poor suffer and die from it.

While waiting for my flight at Mthatha airport it was nice to drink a lovely cup of tea in the Café Gravity, which was furnished with new, leather-upholstered chairs. One of the eight had fallen apart.

A man near me fell out of a chair painfully and noisily - another had collapsed.

Is this our future?

 

[Ninja'd]

And Mthatha policyholders wonder why their premiums are so high.

 

[Hemps]

Just visit the Western Cape run by the DA and the rest of the country - like night and day.

Incomptence by the ANC.
I remember Umtata and even Butterworth in the days before the ANC took over and "fixed" everything.

Oh wait shucks, I cant blame the ANC! it's never their fault, must be the apartheid system that they enherited, I heard that excuse recently from some Mayor or other useless creature.

 

[Hemps]

Our Monkeypality in East London has now also gone bankrupt, but stay tuned for another "turn-around-strategy"

 

[KhoisanX]

I've been to a lot of stuffed up places in my life, but Mthatha/Umtata stands out as the dirtiest/crappiest/worst place I have ever been. Why would anyone choose to live there?

 

[bex.cpt]

We in the Western Cape have chosen a DA led local government & City council. For the past 4 years the CoCT has been voted thw best city in SA why is that? Since we got rid of the corrupt Nmandia M***eto and her ANC cohorts the WC has been running in the BLACK. Cape Town also was named the best host city during the SWC.

I guess the communities that have issues around the country have only themselves to blame. As long as they continue to vote incompetent corrupt vastly inept officials into local government and councils they will have mismanaged towns and cities.

Western Cape FTW

 

[w1z4rd]

Its Umtata... its always being a ****hole. Nothing has changed there in forever.

I was sys admin for UNITRA for several months before I quit because that place is so ***. The reason its so backwards it because it used to be Transkei. Nothing has developed there since the fall of Apartheid, or while Apartheid was in place.

You wanna see the real rural South Africa. Go into the Transkei. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of just rural huts, bad roads and random domesticated animals.

 

[Sherbang]

Just visit the Western Cape run by the DA and the rest of the country - like night and day.

Incomptence by the ANC.
I remember Umtata and even Butterworth in the days before the ANC took over and "fixed" everything.

Oh wait shucks, I cant blame the ANC! it's never their fault, must be the apartheid system that they enherited, I heard that excuse recently from some Mayor or other useless creature.

Can you tell me some of your memories? How did it compare to Cape Town in those days?

 

[w1z4rd]

Just visit the Western Cape run by the DA and the rest of the country - like night and day.

Incomptence by the ANC.
I remember Umtata and even Butterworth in the days before the ANC took over and "fixed" everything.

So do I. It was still a crap hole. It was a different country (Ie, it was run by the "ANC" back then as well).

 

[blunomore]

Do we get the leaders we deserve ?

 

[BBSA]

We in the Western Cape have chosen a DA led local government & City council. For the past 4 years the CoCT has been voted thw best city in SA why is that? Since we got rid of the corrupt Nmandia M***eto and her ANC cohorts the WC has been running in the BLACK. Cape Town also was named the best host city during the SWC.

I guess the communities that have issues around the country have only themselves to blame. As long as they continue to vote incompetent corrupt vastly inept officials into local government and councils they will have mismanaged towns and cities.

Western Cape FTW

I hear the ANC wants to merge the Western Cape and Eastern Cape into one province.

 

[nightjar]

cant blame the ANC! it's never their fault, must be the apartheid system that they enherited, .

They are incredibly lucky that they can (and will) blame apartheid in perpetuity for all their deficiencies.

I came to SA in the dying days of apartheid and am thoroughly sick of hearing it used as an excuse for every failure and crime committed by the comrades.

Forty years of apartheid are a tiny blink in the thousands of years of stagnation that existed in Africa before the introduction of writing, schools and hospitals. Nobody ever complains about the years of butchery perpetrated by Tshaka on his fellow blacks before the arrival of the settlers.

However bad apartheid was the system helped the black population to grow from twelve million in 1951 to thirty seven million in 1991

 

[Sherbang]

So do I. It was still a crap hole. It was a different country (Ie, it was run by the "ANC" back then as well).

never thought I'd see w1z4rd say something so stupid. Who from the ANC was running the Transkei exactly? Or by "ANC" do you mean black people?

 

[anees]

Some nations have a higher intelligence than others...no beating around the bush here, for all those PC, environmentalists, etc...

I've always wondered why is it that some nations progressed faster than others...all things considered equal. On the flip side of this, why have some nations lost their intelligence.

So, perhaps all men are not born equal.

 

[w1z4rd]

never thought I'd see w1z4rd say something so stupid. Who from the ANC was running the Transkei exactly? Or by "ANC" do you mean black people?

I used the term ANC tongue-in-cheek style. Its synonymous with the right wing posters to define anc=black, just like its synonymous for the left wing to define da=white

Some nations have a higher intelligence than others...no beating around the bush here, for all those PC, environmentalists, etc...

Environmentalists have what to do with this conversation?

I've always wondered why is it that some nations progressed faster than others...all things considered equal. On the flip side of this, why have some nations lost their intelligence.

So, perhaps all men are not born equal.

If you are a new liberal, live in a healthy welfare state are very democratic you seem to be able to create a lot of the criteria required for making smart school kids:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article400147.ece

Finnish pupils are the smartest in the world, according to a survey 15-year-olds in 41 countries, closely followed by three Asian countries.

More than 250,000 students in 41 countries took part in Pisa (Program for International Student Assessment) 2003, the second three-yearly survey of its kind. The survey involves pencil and paper tests lasting two hours, taken in the students' schools, and measures pupils in four areas: mathematics, science, reading comprehension and problem solving.

The results showed the Finns in first place followed by the South Koreans, the Hong Kong Chinese and the Japanese, in fourth place.

The survey, on behalf of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), is based on a series of questions which give an idea of a student’s ability to apply knowledge acquired in the classroom to everyday life. It includes the world’s 30 industrialised nations and 11 partner countries and has become a way for a country to measure the effectiveness of its national education system.

The Finns have been overall top each time the survey was carried out. They came second in mathematics in the latest survey, behind Hong Kong, which was also placed first in 2000. Asian education systems traditionally rank high in mathematics. South Korea and Japan placed third and fifth respectively in 2000.

What would you class Hong Kong? Socialist? I dont think so, lots of Capitalism. Not sure how I would class them.

 

[anees]

Because they will use the environment as an excuse to defend nations with a lower intelligence :twisted:

However, having cleaner air to breathe should normally invigorate the brains.

I used the term ANC tongue-in-cheek style. Its synonymous with the right wing posters to define anc=black, just like its synonymous for the left wing to define da=white

Environmentalists have what to do with this conversation?



If you are a new liberal, live in a healthy welfare state are very democratic you seem to be able to create a lot of the criteria required for making smart school kids:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article400147.ece



What would you class Hong Kong? Socialist? I dont think so, lots of Capitalism. Not sure how I would class them.

 

[Grhardt]

I hear the ANC wants to merge the Western Cape and Eastern Cape into one province.

Huh, going back to the old ways - once again . . . The police ranks have already been changed back, haven't they? On the other hand if it helps then is good. It used to be one province in the past before the ANC change came.

 

[BBSA]

Huh, going back to the old ways - once again . . . The police ranks have already been changed back, haven't they? On the other hand if it helps then is good. It used to be one province in the past before the ANC change came.

It is not really because they care about the people in the Eastern Cape but more about consolidating their power.

From The Times

There has been speculation within the ruling party about a merger of the Western Cape with either the Eastern Cape or the Northern Cape, which could cost the Democratic Alliance its hold in the province.

 

[Grhardt]

Some nations have a higher intelligence than others...no beating around the bush here, for all those PC, environmentalists, etc...

I've always wondered why is it that some nations progressed faster than others...all things considered equal. On the flip side of this, why have some nations lost their intelligence.

So, perhaps all men are not born equal.

Are you allowed to post this in a South African based forum? ? ?

 

[Grhardt]

It is not really because they care about the people in the Eastern Cape but more about consolidating their power.

From The Times

I disagree with you. People in the Western Cape are better off then in the Eastern Cape. If that is correct, surely the less privileged will profit. The rest (i.e. political power) does play a role but as long as some improvment takes place . . .