I am presently confused, seemingly very easily confused, when officials of parastatal or municipal entities make entreaties on the citizens of this country of ours.
Yes, my fellow South Africans, that’s us. You and me against the elected and salary earning officialdom.
A plea was recently made for my fellow South Africans to use water sparingly – which we should do anyway, since we are termed a water-scarce country – because the water supplying infrastructure is not adequate enough to provide water to all the people. Reason being, not enough pipes were laid. Today. As on most days.
Eskom is bemoaning the fact that they cannot keep up with the demand for electricity and this is excluding the usual excuse because of the considerable breakdowns we used to have, at the ageing power stations.
So, as in the case of water supply, the problem is due to inadequate and insufficient infrastructure.
In the case of electricity, old decrepit power stations plus insufficient electricity quantity capable of being generated.
Do you remember we were all approached by very polite persons from Stats SA.
We were quizzed about sex, language, jobs and other stuff – but most tellingly just how many bodies resided were at our address.
Was this to make sure that our homes were not overcrowded and dirty doss houses? Or to check if the man of the house was living with many wives like some religions espouse? No!
This expensive exercise was to tally up how many South Africans and illegal foreigners were in the land, so that the country provided enough facilities to service the people.
This broad picture would cover providing sufficient water and electricity, too.
Also building more hospitals/clinics plus extra schools and thus generally making our land a good and happy place to live.
Judging by the requests and shortcoming of our service providers, somebody did not get the email that held the magic numbers of how many people are living legally and illegally here now.
And even if they did, what contingency plans were put in place to keep ahead of the game?
A really worrying fact our secureness is more under threat now, as at the previous census there were about 300 South Africans per one Saps person.
Now the number is approximately 400 South Africans to one Saps official.
And we South Africans, who according to our president are tough and resilient, must now be more careful than ever before because the dangers out there have increased and that it is up to us to keep ourselves more safe because the Saps is not able to do the job efficiently enough.
Where are the extra Saps officials that should be recruited to keep the ratio in our favour for protecting us?
Where is the infrastructure for water and electricity that should have been built to keep in step with the ever expanding cities and towns of South Africa. Did you lot not get the memo?
FELOW SOUTH AFRICAN
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