Why must we pay for Joburg to be fixed when it’s politicians who broke it?

An ANC minister of finance, in an ANC-led government, tells an ANC mayor that they’re screwing up and that same mayor continues to screw up and spend. Hmmmm, and as if we didn’t need another reason to remember this, how are those new electricity tariffs working out for you?

Are Joburgers enjoying paying more for the privilege of accessing that sweet section 27(1)(b) constitutional right to water? Ain’t nobody considering the decreasing value of property (and who’s causing it) when the rates go up.

The whole thing about a political system is that it’s convenient. We don’t need to read up on every person running for office and we don’t need to deal with the hassle of deciding who makes it through the ranks. That’s outsourced to parties. It’s those parties that give us our executives. You’re not voting for the mayor. You’re not voting for the MECs. You just align with a party and say, “Hey, you go do the running of the city for us. Please and thanks!”

So when the people selected for the job do a rubbish job, leave the rubbish on the street, and Pikitup accidentally puts diesel in their petrol tractor, who’s left to sort it out?

If we pray hard enough, maybe the municipality will send somebody eventually and if we’re really lucky, some private organisation will come sort it out and the Men in Black will erase our memory of how that’s going to get invoiced, on some bloated emergency tariff and usually on a Sunday, when it’s double the cost.

That’s not the way to run a world class African city and certainly makes the city motto you didn’t know about, “service with pride” an unfortunate joke.

But it doesn’t matter because the mayor will still earn his R1.6 million a year and best believe that when there’s a shortfall on payday, he’s first in line. But when that shortfall needs to be paid up, where’s it going to come from? Well, who pays for the running of Johannesburg in the first place? Taxpayers.

The cost of the convenience of the political system is that there should be some accommodation for mistakes here and there. The issue is that we’re not dealing with mistakes anymore. We know we’re not dealing with mistakes because the guys from his own party are telling the mayor he’s being reckless.

This is not some spaza shop or roadwork in a far-flung rural area we’re dealing with. It’s the economic hub of the country and once, the continent. They’re knowingly running it worse than a drug addict’s drug dealership.

It’s easy to run a city into the pothole, especially when you have such a generous number to choose from, but more especially when you’re not the one paying for it.

Funny thing, that section 27 of the constitution; it affords us rights of health care, food, water and social security. What’s more amazing is the burden is placed on the state, which “must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights”.

I’m not sure how deliberately pushing your economic hub into spiralling debt does that but who am I to question the genius of Dada Morero? I’m just a guy who diligently pays more and more when Sars asks so that guys like Dada can earn more and more and for that, I have to rely on his team less and less, lest I be disappointed.

And even though I don’t earn his money, when the lights are out or the taps dry, I can make some sort of plan, not likely one that involves a larny hotel bath, but some plan. Most people don’t have that.

So the question has to be asked. If living in Johannesburg is worse as a result of the people a political party has given us, where is their penance? Why are we left to pay the people who do a poor job and pay to undo it?

It’s not right to deliberately enable a screw up of a city, so it shouldn’t be right to expect others to cover the cost of fixing it.