The Mandisa Shiceka Clinic in Hammanskraal which has not opened since its construction in 2018. The clinic remains closed due to it having no electricity or water. On the neighbouring premises a tented clinic has been established to treat Hammanskraal residents, 18 September 2020, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles
There’s an old African saying that when the elephants fight, the grass gets crushed.
On an intellectual and effectiveness level, one would hardly put the Tshwane metro administration and the Gauteng provincial government into the “elephant” category of anything… yet their current, egotistical fight over medical services in Hammanskraal is leaving the proverbial grass, the people, badly wounded.
A state-of-the-art clinic in the area, which cost R124 million, stands empty. Residents have to be examined and treated in tents or shipping containers. Without bulk services such as sewerage systems, electricity, water supply and storm water drainage systems pipes, the facility, which is said to have been completed in 2017, cannot be used.
Gauteng blames Tshwane – which it has being trying to place under administration – and the city claims the provincial bureaucrats haven’t done anything by the municipal rule book.
It goes without saying that if it weren’t for the very real negative impacts on people who desperately need this facility, this row would be farcical.
Points-scoring and big-men egos have no place in a country committed to democracy and a government – whether provincial or municipal – which should be committed to service delivery.
We already have too many innocent victims in this country.
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