Look to Mozambique and your possible future, SA

I was lucky enough to do some travelling – both distance and time travelling – and on both occasions I was shocked.

A group of us went to Mozambique for a week and during our travels we spent a day in Maputo. It was my first visit to the city in about 10 years.

There are beautiful, brand-new high-rise buildings along the beachfront, new roads, an engineering miracle in the form of a bridge over the bay linking the capital through a new 120km tar road with the most southern border post at Ponta do Ouro.

Officially opened in November, the Maputo-Katembe bridge is – at more than 3km – the longest suspension bridge on the continent, reaching a maximum height of 60m across the bay so as not to impede shipping traffic.

If anybody had told me 10 years ago the changes I would experience, I would never have believed them.

The day in Maputo was like looking into the future of a country looking to the future, building and creating and growing against all odds. And if they continue on this path, I can’t wait for my next visit and the promise of an even better future.

I felt like a time traveller getting a first glimpse of what’s to come.

But I also visited the mining town of Randfontein and West Village, a former mining community on the West Rand where I grew up.

Back in the day, West Village boasted bowling lawns, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, parks, and even a cricket field. The recreational club could hold its own when compared with the very best.

Today, West Village is overrun by illegal miners and squatters. None of the amenities exist. It looks like a Mad Max future.

And Randfontein isn’t doing much better. The whole town suffers from an eerie atmosphere of slow decay. Yes, there is one new Mall, but the roads are riddled with potholes, pockmarks of a disease seen all throughout South Africa.

As South Africans travelling to the future, we should all do our bit to ensure that it is a future worth looking forward to. So far, we are failing miserably.

Danie Toerien

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