South African flair in the face of adversity

Public-private partnerships (PPP) are the current panaceas, the road map to our much-delayed New Jerusalem, but while our leaders are painting castles in the sky, there are many happening right under our noses.

Sandton is Africa’s richest square mile by any metric, but that’s not so obvious at night.

There are no traffic lights up Sandton Drive (or is that Leila Khaled Drive?) if you’ve been able to successfully make it down Winnie Mandela Drive (the old William Nicol) where the traffic lights do work but are now ignored.

If it were not for all the businesses and illuminated billboards, the area would be in total darkness, but Eskom isn’t load shedding.

Thanks to the G20 being hosted in Sandton later this year, the potholes are being fixed with a vengeance, but it’s still a nightmare for the workers who travel in taxis in the wee hours of the morning to get to work.

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Not one of them has reflective gear on, which is understandable given the kind of work they are going to, but self-defeating when you consider the risks they take alighting from taxis sho’t lefting in the gloom of the murk before dawn.

(There’s another potential PPP; designing and selling an entire range of affordable clothing with reflective strips because it’s not just school kids and miners who work in perilous environments).

The City of Joburg has got away with murder for years.

We have been bamboozled by the merry-go-round of mayors and their MMCs, to the extent that the haves in the north have simply dug boreholes, installed JoJo tanks and solar panels, paid their medical aid and outsourced their security.

The problem comes in, though, when they have to leave their castles and slum it with the rest of us, especially in the early morning.

It’s nothing compared to the state of the Post Office.

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Pep Stores has a bigger footprint and delivers more parcels accordingly, maybe they should be paying the Sassa grants out too.

Renewing your car licence at the post office is a gamble, it’s best to download the form beforehand, or else get it from one of the unofficial service providers lurking outside, who can also photocopy your ID card and sell you a black ball pen before you enter – if the post office is open.

PPPs aren’t new, they’re happening everywhere – typical South African ingenuity in the face of (official) adversity.