In response to Mina Mahlangu and her comments about a dirty city – the situation is more complex than you realise, so let me explain. There are many factors involved, both cultural and financial.
Firstly the financial – our present DA-led coalition is at best an uneasy truce, trying to do its best for the city and undo more than 20 years of neglect, incompetence and sabotage. The ANC thwarts moves to improve at every turn and the EFF requires support for their unrealistic proposals in order to maintain the slow rate of progress we see. The backlog on infrastructure upgrades and maintenance, without even providing for the obvious increase in demands, is over R170bn. Because of the culture of not paying any government levies during the fight for democracy, tens of thousands still do not pay municipal charges. Weeding out the genuinely indigent as opposed to the chancers is a slow process. This affects the funds available, and things like healthcare, road repair, infrastructure repair (and theft of infrastructure which lands up at recycling depots costs many millions a year) come before street cleaning.
The cultural aspect comes in with a general lack of understanding of local government finance. People understand that their rates pay for the city services, but the money is never enough, because of those who can’t pay and those who don’t pay. The common idea that throwing rubbish around creates jobs sounds good, but it doesn’t go far enough. The city only has so much money. If they are creating jobs, I would rather see a job for a clinic nurse or a librarian than a street cleaner. They are all employment, but the first two enrich lives and have a lasting benefit on the community. Cleaning the neighbourhood is something the community can do, and it will become a lot easier as people get out of the habit of leaving a mess behind them.
As a city let us concentrate on allowing the management a bit of financial breathing space to employ more nurses and librarians by picking up our own mess and encouraging our communities to do the same.
Last week, the Cape West Girl Guides collected two-and-a-half tons of plastic bottle tops to fund facial reconstruction surgery for a child. This endeavour took months and a fair amount of community involvement. That is two-and-a-half tons being recycled. If they can set an example like that, what are you waiting for?
