Retired experts could help fix failing municipalities

It’s not often that we hear anything resembling common sense coming from our MPs in the National Assembly, so we were surprised this week when one of them pleaded with government to recall retired engineers and accountants to help save our collapsing municipalities.

Even more surprising was the fact that the call came from uMkhonto weSizwe party’s Visvin Reddy, who is a member of the parliamentary committee overseeing the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs.

He suggested roping in “municipal experts” to guide current leaders.

He said bodies representing important industries related to municipal governance had many retirees and former industry leaders ready to lend their expertise.

“We need to bring in all these retired skills that we have. Bring them back and put them in a team that will start to move into what we have described as distressed municipalities,” said Reddy.

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Welcome to the real world – the world divorced from cadre deployment and race-based affirmative action, which puts ethnicity above skills and experience.

We’re not saying the time for redress and levelling the employment playing field is over – far from it. But surely it is obvious that the experience and skills of many “formerly advantaged” – who were allowed to go on pension or otherwise squeezed out of municipalities – should be used for mentoring those in key positions.

Reddy’s appeal – even though it comes from an avowed populist party which believes in “radical economic transformation” – shows that politics can, and should, be set aside in the national interest.

Most of our towns and cities are failing – or have failed. Water and sewage systems are falling apart, electricity provision is patchy and the infrastructure is crumbling.

Recalling the experts by itself is not going to save them, though. It needs a commitment and investment from government to carry out a proper repair job.

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