There is a saying that I always keep in my mind, and it goes something like this "the future is never as great as you dream it would be, and nor as bad as you fear it would be", so it seems life is about midway between our best dreams and our worst fears, and damn I hope that this is true when I look at our country right now, we have such great aspirations, yet such damaging fears.
You would think that in South Africa our challenges and friction points would be based on our polarised political environment and society, and that we would be at each others throats in our divided society as a result of the politicians in many respects dividing the nation as well, yet despite even the most emotional subjects such as land expropriation and songs that are sung seemingly to add salt into wounds, we as South Africans shoulder on.
I have seen since the dawn of democracy that South Africans in fact are very mature about even sensitive subjects, we are willing to debate, cry, laugh and accept, and I believe that we will continue to do so going into the future. And in this I also see that despite the polarisation, the economical hardships of many, the sensitive and emotional issues, its not politics that is our challenge, its relatively simple but important to everyday life things, its about feeling safe, sending our kids to school, being employed and having basic service delivery.
Service Delivery - Electricity
Look at the country this morning, and for the past few years, protests flaring up everywhere, not because of land rulings, songs being sung, political statements getting people hot under the collar, no simply because people do not have access to electricity and water, basic needs that should be relatively easy to supply in one of the richest countries on the continent, yet here we are.
Ordinary citizens having reached a level of "Gatvolness" to the absolute incompetency that we have reached to provide services to a nation.
I believe that the just announced price hikes of electricity added salt into the wounds that have been lingering, and increased in intensity for several years, take a look at the number of days that we had loadshedding over the past few years and you would understand the actual impact of electricity cuts in terms of numbers:
2015: 97 days of loadshedding
2016: Zero days of loadshedding
2017: Zero days of loadshedding
2018: 14 days of loadshedding
2019: 30 days of loadshedding
2020: 54 days of loadshedding
2021: 75 days of loadshedding
2022: 208 days of loadshedding
2023: 16 days of loadshedding ... on the 16th of January
Now I am not an energy expert, but I can expand on what the average South African believes led to this position we find ourselves in, and perception is reality goes the saying, in this case this is also true, lets look at this for a moment.
Legend goes that about a decade or so ago, the board of Eskom decided that the coal reserves held by Eskom was too much, and that this should be reduced, which led to the remaining coal firstly not being able to absorb the moist found in these coal reserves, and subsequently led to less coal being available dry enough to be used effectively.
The same board also decided that maintenance programs were expensive and should be cut back in order to get the company to a more profitable level, which led to maintenance not being carried out and also led to where we are today.
Then it seems from this legend that the suppliers of the coal, quality coal that generates greater heat and longer burning, diverted their premium coal to other markets and Eskom ended up buying poor quality coal at premium prices, from mines connected to friends of friends.
Well thats legend, the ordinary South African also believes a few other things, whether true or perception.
The ordinary South African believes that there is a massive fraud syndicate within Eskom, milking every cent they can from Eskom, by providing no or very poor services at exorbitant prices, a network that steal everything they can lay their hands on, or manipulates procurement processes for mass scale looting, this through a syndicated network of friends of friends at the highest levels.
The ordinary South Africans believe that Medupi was full of faults, poor planning, corrupt networks, tenderpreneurs connected to friends at high levels, and in general was not geared towards serious management principals at all, not to mention ignoring the countries citizens.
The ordinary South African watches TikTok videos of international experts saying they have warned South Africa for years that this moment would be arriving, and these experts openly accusing government of corruption at Eskom, and other areas in State Owned Enterprizes (SEO), and the ordinary South African believes these experts, as we experience fraud and corruption by just riding down the street, hence the many jokes on Facebook that a burger and a coke will be at the order of the day for any encounter with traffic officials.
The ordinary South African believes that their rates and electricity payments are being stolen by local councils and municipalities and that the position of Major is filled with "fat cats" of no value looking after their cronies, and that Eskom is owed billions as a result of this blatant theft at municipal level, yet these ratepayers are expected to continue paying these municipalities and in fact have to take them to court to force them to provide services, the ordinary South African therefore believes that they do not have anyone 'having their back' in local or even national government, and then resort to protests, tyre burning and frustrated violence and property damage, the ordinary South African is desperate with nowhere to turn to.
What the ordinary South African does not realise however is that we are in deep trouble as any action to fix Eskom after years of neglect, poor management, corruption and just plain bad planning, will take decades to fix and for the required investment to reach your local power plug at home, these are extensive Capital Investments that takes time from plan to operational level.
What the ordinary South African does not realise is that the resistance to privatise the supply of energy or even the objection to privatisation of Eskom and other State Owned Entities is a death sentence for energy delivery in South Africa, and that we would need to find a balance between these objections and the private sector stepping in, that is the fastest way to at least some form of a short term plan, the rest is all talk with no real short term effect.
Service Delivery - Water
Many places across South Africa had no running water for several decades, and reality is that under the current circumstances they never will, no matter what promises are made each year by those in higher positions and local government representatives.
Years of neglect have brought many water supply systems to the brink of collapse, and catching up if we start today with serious leadership and the budgets available, with no corruption and shoulder to the wheel focus, will take at least a decade to fix what we have, not even taking into consideration adding the new infrastructure that we need to add to cater for current and future demand, visit any township in South Africa and you will be disheartened just how big the challenge is to provide new infrastructure.
The reality is that we will have to think differently for water supply for new infrastructure, and would have to look at international best practices that provides water services based on newer models, than the old model of placing pipes in the ground and distributing water from a central reservoir, it will take decades to do this and will not work in these environments.
Besides the challenges as mentioned above, we are also back to what the ordinary South African believes in terms of corruption, empty promises, poor leadership and general unwillingness from councils to look after their communities, just think if you have easy access to your ward councillors, in fact do you even know who they are.
Just down the road we find Parys, some of the citizens had no water for years, and the suburbs are continuously asking for help, I counted that on a local WhatsApp Group called "Hoopvol", which was created to engage with the community on the water and power issues experienced, there were literally thousands of messages of people in Parys not having water, water with worms being reported and in the local townships of Tumahole and Schonkenville the situation is far worse, ironically the Vaal River flows right through Parys.
Service Delivery - General Services
Visit the local home affairs, go to renew or book your license appointment, try and take a train, go to council to sort an account on your water bill, and you are bound to experience severe disappointment, long lines, unfriendly service and corrupt helpers to get you to the front, systems being offline, or even worse you may even get robbed whilst waiting in line, ask any Klerksdorp resident about their experiences in midtown, its a nightmare.
This I believe is a leadership issue, and possibly reflective of the corporate culture that exists within these institutions, it used to be a honour to be a Major of a City/Town once, now it seems to be an opportunity to be important and neglect citizens, doing press release after press release of empty promises, just leading to a further increase of the frustration of South African citizens to the boiling point, can we then blame people when they take to the street and start breaking stuff.
Drive through any town and look at the conditions of the road, and think for yourself, if you were the Major of that town, would you not have felt a sense of shame... take a look as an example on the National Road going through Wolmaranstad... its a hellhole of a road that is more potholes than road and this right in the centre of town... its a disaster... and I always wonder if the local, regional leaders do not have any sense of responsibility and pride left, and most South Africans feel the same way.
There is one note however that I think is important to raise, that being that we as ordinary South African citizens also need to step up to the plate. Its ironic that we demonstrate due to lack of service delivery, yet when we get a job in a government institution, and have to provide services to our fellow citizens, we start to exhibit the same attitude as the leaders that seemingly do not care about providing top class services, and we end up proving unfriendly, unmotivated and provide absolute poor services, and effectively we have become the exact same thing that we are complaining about.
Have a look at how many times you see council employees that are supposed to clean parks, pavements and other such in the local towns, sitting under a tree and even openly sleeping under these trees, not to mention visiting the local cemeteries in town that actually has a manager and staff at council dedicated to cleaning and maintaining these, and you again wonder what happens when we as South Africans cross the door as employees into a government institution.
The Issue of Crime
People are robbed, raped and shot on a daily basis, and the ordinary South African citizen believe that criminals have more rights than innocent citizens, the ordinary South African Citizen feels that some cases are not even worth reporting anymore as justice will either be delayed or criminals will be set free the next day, if they are even ever caught.
The ordinary South African Citizen believes that; cases before court will drag on for years, dockets will go missing, court systems would side on the criminals side more than on the citizens side, If they break down next to a road their chances of being robbed or killed is greater than their chance of getting help, If they open a shop they will be robbed, so entrepreneurs just don't bother anymore, and then imagine that the ordinary South African citizen is now more fearful of seeing a blue light and uniform approach them than comfortable, they close all of their windows at intersections, they are getting used to seeing multiple notice boards that an area is a high crime spot and not see a single police officer for a whole day, the ordinary South African is "Vuisvoos"
Yet it seems that leaders across the country is oblivious to how the ordinary South African feels unsafe, and who can blame these leaders as they have bodyguards, high fences, state protection and comfortable beds to sleep in with CCTV paid by some company they met for lunch to discuss the next government tender deal.
The Politicians Helping Citizens
Looking at politicians for help seems to be a futile case, open up the papers and you would see that these politicians seems to be focusing their time on saying the opposite of whatever the other party says, engage in mudslinging exercises, promise a range of actions that would be implemented that never happens, announce committees that will be formed to investigate a disaster or a fraud case, promise someone that waited 30 years for a house that the issue will receive attention, land and race issues are being used to gain points, and the list goes on... everything under the sun except really helping the ordinary South African citizen... President Zuma had a hotline, President Ramaphosa has war rooms and family meetings, yet the ordinary South African just wants service delivery... how ironic.
The Service Delivery Revolution
The ordinary south African citizen realises that the division created by politicians is a game, and that we as South African citizens require a united front to deal with the issues that impact our daily lives, and whilst the ordinary South African Citizens are starting to do exactly that, the ordinary South African politician, leader, major and others is not realising that they are out of touch with the very people they should be serving, what they also do not realise, and its so evident, is that the ordinary South African citizen knows that we are on the verge of a Service Delivery Revolution.
Footnote: This article does not focus on any parties in politics, not for and not against, its just the view of an ordinary South African citizen.