Peter Pan has left the house

Everyone has a Plan B.

Some have a Plan C for when Plan A and Plan B tank. Except the City of Johannesburg.

Pipe burst? Wait 48 hours, maybe it will be sorted. Potholes? Maybe in a few months, patience is character forming. Waste management? What’s that?

Yes, we know Pikitup is trying on a budget cutting exercise, hence the strike. Yes, we know Pikitup was rotten with corruption, and it’s trying to, well, Pikitup. But the overall lack of a Plan B is stupefying.

City council is seemingly being run by a bunch of ham-fisted amateurs who don’t know which end of a pencil to sharpen first. And we’re paying them a lot of money while they try and figure it out. According to the National Treasury, some of the salaries paid to heads of departments in 2011 were :

• City Power R2 713 930
• Johannesburg Water R2 286 944
• Pikitup R1 911 144
• Johannesburg Roads Agency R1 240 000
• Metrobus R1 384 000

The total cost of councillor, director and executive remuneration was R142 702 829.

For what?

No wonder the Advertising Standards Authority upheld Blairgowrie resident Steven Haywood’s demand that city council withdraw its advertisement of being a ‘World-Class African City’ from radio. Among other things, Haywood submitted ‘…that the city loses R1. 2 billion worth of electricity each month, and loses water to the value of R800 million per month’.

If even a third of those numbers are true, then why on earth are we paying these people so much? One of the reasons city council was ruled against because it didn’t even bother turning up at the hearing. Seriously? The disrespect boggles the mind.

We pay our money, and endure the stink, and grit our teeth after thumping through another pothole, and we welcome our racing hearts after sliding sideways in our vehicles through a gushing river of potable water from a pipe burst. We do this, and much more because we love our city and our country, we want it to be better, we believe we are better, we want to repair the past and we hope, one day, all will be better for all.

World-Class African City? It’s more like Never-Never Land, and Peter Pan has left the house.