#IssuesAtStake: No power to the people in Promiseville

Inept governance in South Africa has rapidly devalued the popular “power to the people” axiom.

Rendered helpless by the shameless incompetence of government departments in all spheres, frustrated citizens are increasingly sidelined to spectator status while service delivery and infrastructure continue to implode around them.

There appears to be no, or very little, progress on all the lofty grand plans government entities forever announce to address the tsunami of maladies tormenting the country and its populace, be it deliberate acts of sabotage (Eskom and Parliament), ongoing corruption issues (Zondo Commission) or the spectacular failure of safety and security strategies (July looting spree).

The list is long.

Meaningless public relations speak is seemingly all the incompetents can offer in their feeble attempts to appear effective and proactive.

We may as well rename the country Promiseville.

So dazed and confused have people become, there’s almost an acceptance of the new abnormal.

Yet, despite the fatigue, South Africans remain surprisingly resilient to ensure some measure of functionality by refusing to surrender to the bungling brigade.

On local shores, for example, there is one issue pressure groups should pursue relentlessly – our water security.

The stalled Hazelmere Dam upgrade should not be allowed to remain on the backburner.

Though good rains have moved the region out of the crisis mode for now with Hazelmere’s level filling up rapidly, this unfinished project nevertheless needs to be completed as a matter of urgency.

Had it been, the current inflow would have been harvested instead of the overflow being wasted.

Nobody can predict when the next crippling drought is due, and the last thing we can afford is to be lulled into a comfort zone until we suddenly face a day zero scenario again.

It is inconceivable that after already spending R526-million to raise the dam wall, thereby doubling the capacity to serve this key economic growth node, the project has been allowed to become dormant since October 2018 when the contractors pulled the plug.

This, apparently, because the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) failed to pay the contractors R40-million to purchase specialised material to complete the project.

Escalation costs are inevitably snowballing and the estimated cost to finish the remaining four percent of the project is now more than R100-million, double the original R498-million budget.

Former water and sanitation minister, Gugile Nkwinti, many moons ago offered all kinds of explanations for the mess we find ourselves in, blaming corruption (irregular spending of R4-bllion) and poor management (read incompetence) for jeopardising the country’s water infrastructure.

In total contractors were owed R1.5-billion at the time.

Don’t officials and ministers lock down the budgets when they plan, scope and approve major projects such as the Hazelmere Dam upgrade? Clearly not.

It is mind-boggling that mismanagement and corruption had reached the levels that the “mere” R40-million could not be found to keep the Hazelmere project in momentum.

As the voice of the local community, The North Coast Courier continuously attempts to obtain updated information of developments in our region, but typically this is hard to come by. Effective communication is also fast becoming a dying art in state entities.

The last time we received response from the water and sanitation department’s spokesperson, he said “the department is in the process of getting agreements in place to ensure the completion of the last four percent of the work on the Hazelmere Dam”.

Stop the flippen presses for this attempt at detailed information sharing.

Tellingly, no time frames have been indicated, so “getting arrangements in place” may take many years for all we know. Eish!

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