Two Bits – 20 February 2015

A couple of weeks ago I scoffed that National Geographic had rated Clifton the second best beach in the world, compared to what s on offer in our own KZN.
Well, the truth will come out. Travel booking website SafariNow.com says the top destination chosen by its customers in 2014 was . . . Ballito.
“This tourist favourite grabbed the top spot as KZN’s most-loved holiday spot,” says the site, “attributed to the area’s awesome beaches and great tourist attractions such as amazing hotels, restaurants and shopping. Ballito also has a great night-life which tourists can enjoy.”
In second place was St Lucia, for the scuba diving, turtle tracking and guided walking safaris, then South Beach (Durban), with its tourist magnet uShaka Marine World. Fourth was Umhlanga Rocks, then Shakas Rock, Uvongo and Umdloti in seventh spot.
It brings into focus a recent workshop held by KwaDukuza municipality on the development of beach nodes.
ACDP councillor Nel Sewraj told me the workshop degenerated into a squabble over whether money should be spent on improving Ballito or on developing new beach sites. Councillors of the ruling party believe Ballito has enough resources already. In other words, politics versus business.
I can’t help agree that it would be great in principle to develop Tinley Manor and other spots, to spread the load (and the income), but it’s nonsense that Ballito’s resources cannot do with improving.
Only last month we published embarrassing photos of faeces-strewn and filthy toilets at Ballito main beach and Salmon Bay, which left many visitors highly disgusted. And before season we had to rely on a paint company to donate the wherewithal to improve the badly neglected lifesaving tower.
The bottom line is that a municipality is a business. Ratepayers pay the municipality for services and the municipality delivers, or at least, it’s supposed to. Therefore it goes without saying that every municipality should at least have some business sense. Unfortunately, as in the case of KDM, business sense is often overshadowed by political sense.
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Reader Leann Peters (see letter below) has said exactly what I had in mind, that the Speaker of the Assembly has no idea what her role is. But I shall leave Leann to say it.
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I was walking home through a construction site one day and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo.
In morse code!