Have you ever heard a loud bang, and then nothing but deathly silence?
That eerie moment when everything just… stops.
That’s the kind of silence we’ve become all too familiar with when it comes to the Mzimkhulu River bridge.
No machinery. No hammering. No welding. No shouting. Just stillness and the echo of frustration.
While the rest of us rise before the sun to make the great trek south and back again each day, we’re met with a structure frozen in time.
The only movement is our growing disbelief.
And then last week, while stuck in early morning gridlock, I read a headline in the Highway Mail about a R20m to R22m statue of OR Tambo erected on North Beach, still hidden under a covering.
Yes, an estimated R22m spent on a statue in a city where residents dodge potholes, endure failing water infrastructure daily, face a broken transport system overtaken by trucks, and see sewage spewing onto beaches, leaving Durban in shambles.
It’s not about whether OR Tambo deserves a statue.
It’s about timing. It’s about priorities.
And right now, it seems that the priorities of many towns and cities are woefully misaligned with the lived realities of their residents.
The contrast is impossible to ignore, a costly statue veiled in mystery, while further south, fixing an old bridge doesn’t even seem to make the urgent ‘to-do’ list.
What hope does that leave for us along this coast?
Because this is about more than transport and traffic.
It’s about dignity.
It’s about respect for communities whose voices have long been muffled by broken promises.
All we ask is this – if you can find R22m for a monument, surely you can find the competence to fix a lifeline.
Until then, we’ll keep rising in the dark – not just to beat the traffic, but to beat the silence.
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