The recent court judgement in Koster that compelled the municipality to hand over the water and sanitation plants to residents to rehabilitate and manage has finally given long suffering ratepayers across the length and breadth of the country a glimmer of hope that some semblance of sustainable municipal service delivery is possible.
It has also served, one would hope, as a loud ‘wakeup call’ to provincial and national government departments, particularly Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), that even the Courts have had enough, and drastic and urgent intervention is needed.
Cogta should be seized with the need to overhaul local government structures, but it appears that nothing but a total collapse is needed to spur them into any action.
As I write this, reports are coming through of protests by communities along the N2 in Umtentweni and Hibberdene, illustrating the scale and scope of the issues that provoke such community action.
Closer to home, the issues plaguing Ugu District Municipality has occupied the front pages of local, regional and even national newspapers.
Television news channels have flocked to the district, providing in-depth and sometimes heart-wrenching coverage of the crisis, for this in reality is what it is.
The economic and social impact of the inability or unwillingness of the district, provincial and national government structures to craft a permanent and sustainable solution is immense.
A colleague recently said to me that the ‘powers that be’ are waiting for a total collapse, so that the restoration projects and processes can be piggy-backed on the electioneering that is about to start ahead of the municipal elections later this year, both as an opportunity for ‘patronage’ for selected service providers, and to portray themselves as ‘white knights’ riding to the rescue of the local community.
To think that the misery and desperation of people could possibly be used in an election campaign strategy is chilling and appalling: but politics is not for sissies, as people always remind me.
There is currently a groundswell from local communities for a ‘Koster Solution’ to the Ugu water issues.
In my interactions with locals, it is apparent that every grain of goodwill toward the municipality has been exhausted.
The commonly held view is that it is ‘management by crisis’ at the entity currently, and that management has essentially become ‘firefighters’ eschewing their executive planning and strategic roles for combating the daily fires that flare up in every part of the organisation.
Vijay Naidoo writes in his personal capacity as CEO of the Port Shepstone Business Forum.
The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
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