Forgive me if I keep harping on about the lifts at the Andries Scribante Haven flats in Cason.
Even though this has nothing to do with national security or international politics, I feel what is happening right here at home is indicative of why our entire country is trodden into the ground.
It boils down to bad management, bad planning, generally poor service delivery, a sad lack of sympathy, and a nonchalant attitude.
I am not talking here just about the Scribante debacle, but just look at what is happening at the government-run parastatals that are bleeding our coffers dry.
A resident wrote to us to make a point of how, because of simple bad governance and poor management, the government has accrued massive debt that the taxpayer has to pay back.
How on earth can an airline be billions in debt? That is some really bad management. In any private company, the CEO would have been hauled over the coals a long time ago.
However, since this is government-run enterprises, the shoddy and shocking state of affairs it seems are allowed to continue and slide into the darkness of horrendous maladministration. Sure, the government is trying to save what has been completely destroyed, but I fear it is 10 years too late.
Let us return to the Scribante fiasco, and let us drop our heads in utter shame.
Since June last year the frail and the elderly at the local government-run haven has had to use the stairs because the lifts are not working.
Last year in November we reported that the metro said it was fast-tracking the process of appointing a contractor to repair the out-of-order lifts at Scribante.
At the time, the Advertiser was told the metro is following a shortened supply chain management process that is aimed at ensuring that by end of November a contractor is appointed so as to commence with the project.
By February, the lifts were still not working.
Throughout the year, the ward councillor has been pushing hard to get this problem fixed urgently, yet, by the end of May, the lifts are still not fixed.
But wait, there is apparently hope. Contractors have started clearing the site, which should have happened about a month ago.
This is, however, not the end of the saga. You see, the frail and the elderly will probably have to wait another three months to use the lifts.
Why? Because the lifts are only now coming from China!
Question is, do we not have any people in this country who can make lifts, therefore is the government making no effort to support locally manufactured goods?
And, if the metro has decided that we will give all our money to China and kill our local trade, surely these lifts could have been ordered a long time ago?
But no. Due to delays in the administrative process, therefore management, the people are Scribante still suffer.
So by the time the lifts are installed, it would probably be 15 months after the lifts broke.
Yes, more than a year to sort out an issue which should have enjoyed high priority.
I fear if the Advertiser had not continually pushed for some kind of action, then it might have been another year of waiting in agony.
Remember, it is not just the lifts that are a problem. The place is falling apart, is filthy, yet those who stay there have to settle for such a sad state of living because they most probably have nowhere else to go.
Again, I pose the question to the metro: Is the treatment of the elderly at Scribante indicative of the metro’s attitude towards the frail and the old?
Does it speak of the government’s general attitude towards its people, considering the poor service delivery and how the government keeps piling up debt because of incredibly bad management?
Scribante deals with local government, but surely this lack of care and service speaks volumes about the lack of care and service dished out by the government at large.
If millions are being ‘lost’ due to corruption and greed – millions that could help the poor and the needy – then surely there is a genuine and sincere lack of sympathy.
And maybe this is what is going on in Boksburg. Where is the sympathy for those crying out for some kind of attention?
Yes, I know, there are even bigger problems in the informal settlements, but then again, this also speaks of the government’s continued failure to take care of its people. Hence all the protests across the country.
Shall we again for the umpteenth time remind our government that it has been put into power by the people, and is supposed to serve the people, and not supposed to feed its own coffers and ambitions.
And so we wait … waiting for proper service from the government, for some kind of genuine accountability, for some kind of true remorse and sincerity and sympathy, and above all, for those lifts branded ‘made in China’.
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Scribante waits in anticipation for lifts from China
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