Christmas is coming with a pothole, fallen tree and a lot of promises

Reminiscent of a five-year-old me recognising my father’s eyes between the red Christmas cap and slap-on beard was my disappointment at municipal services over the last month.

My excitement over seeing something actually being done with my monthly rates and taxes was followed by utter disappointment over exactly how it’s being put to use.

It all started when the pothole brigade did the rounds in my cul-de-sac.

A dedicated Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) identification team – or whatever their official job titles are – marked out with yellow spray paint the dozen or so potholes that needed filling.

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Their visit was followed by another team which removed loose gravel and pieces of tarmac from the holes, filled it with fresh tar and compacted it.

Even though their truck with empty space on the back was parked right next to it in the road, they decided to wheelbarrow the rubble to the pavement where it was left in a neat little gravel pile.

Being very efficient up until the end, another team was surely waiting in the wings to eagerly swoop up the rubble. It was around this time that a water pipe supplying both my next-door neighbour’s and my house with municipal water sprung a leak on the pavement.

A call was logged with Joburg Water and, would you know, a team was dispatched on a Sunday morning nogal.

It was around this time that things started going pear-shaped.

The Sunday team repaired the leak and declared that the frangipani tree growing on the pavement between the two houses was the culprit and needed to be removed. But they couldn’t do it as it’s City Parks’ job.

That was not the only thing they couldn’t do.

The four-member team – likely earning some kind of additional incentive for their weekend work – simply couldn’t put back the three spadefuls of top soil they dug up.

They said a ‘‘closing team” will be assigned for that particular job.

True’s bob, the closing team closed the hole a few days later, but the drama was far from over.

Less than a week later the tree fell down with only half its remaining roots not able to support the weight after heavy rainfall. Enter City Parks.

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After a logged call and further two follow-up calls, a team was dispatched to remove the fallen frangipani. But guess what?

The stump, halfway uprooted, was not removed, while the branches were tossed next to the rubble on the pavement.

Yes, the gravel was still there. The “branch transportation branch” followed, removing the branches without touching the half-uprooted stump.

Yet another call to City Parks resulted in a “we don’t have the capacity to remove stumps” excuse, but that they will see what they can do.

That weekend, my neighbour – a middle-aged man who is not a body builder – dug out the remaining roots attached to the stump armed only with a spade.

He left the removed stump on the pavement to enable the non-existent City Parks stump-removal team with no capacity to, upon arrival, kick it down to a stump transportation unit that is more specialised than the branch transportation branch.

I wouldn’t put the existence of such a thing past them.

Now it’s a foot race as to which unit gets there first before Christmas Eve. The gravel people or the stump people.

Heaven forbids there is a team capable of doing both. Anyway, the safe money is on Father Christmas showing up first. The real one.

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