AGM 2010 address
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
For those of you not acquainted, this is a stanza of poem written by William Butler Yates in 1919 in the aftermath of WW1. The Poem is entitled the Second Coming.
I am not a literacy scholar - and I am aware that few, if any of you, are here tonight to appreciate Edwardian poetry – but I hope you will indulge me as I use this poem to structure and inform my brief address to you this evening.
Ignoring the colonial overtones of the poem – there a number of poignant references that are relevant to you and I, here in Craighall, Johannesburg, in South Africa in the year 2010.
The first is point, is about political ideology. It is important to understand ideology – as ideology is the basis upon which outcomes are prioritised and decisions are made. This differs from say a publically listed company, for example, where the creation of shareholder value is used as the underlying basis for investment and expenditure decisions.
In 1958, Nigerian Author Chinua Achebe wrote a book called Things Fall Apart – a deliberate echo of the poem you have just heard me read. It’s a passionate defence of African culture against colonial misconceptions which attempt to paint African societies as savage and primitive. It’s a story of post-colonial imaginings (at this point Nigeria was still a colony); of a Nigeria free from colonial oppression. It is relevant to South Africa today, because, as the youngest post-colonial nation in Africa, South African politics, local or national, reflects the wistful imaginings of South Africa as a post-colonial society.
In practical terms, it explains the City of Johannesburg’s emphasis on the development of Soweto (the home of resistance to Apartheid) – which now boasts fully tarred roads, sidewalks with verges; storm water drains and potable water and 3 urban malls. It explains the development of dual carriage roadways being built in Orange Farm, South of Johannesburg, when traffic demand is minimal. It explains the establishment of the City’s so-called Empowerment Zones– tax free business and industrial parks that have failed to attract investment from the private sector despite millions of Rands of investment - in Johannesburg’s formal townships. It explains how the City will often make decisions that are inefficient, that erode value but which have social or political significance. It demonstrates that we cannot expect private sector service from a government sector body.
A second point of relevance to our reality here tonight – is the decay referred to by Yeats in his poem is increasingly real to all of us.
Hands up, anyone here who doesn’t believe our City is deteriorating.
We can see it all around us. Our roads are crumbling, our verges are untended, and our parks remain uncut. According to the CRA over 37 streets in the suburb require some kind of attention by the Johannesburg Roads Agency. Driving around the suburb – I think the CRA is being too kind and the real number is in fact much higher. I myself have requested that over 17 roads in Craighall and Craighall Park be resurfaced and otherwise attended to. We will be lucky if we get one.
Let explain why. The City currently has a capital budget of R7 billion.
SOUNDS BIG RIGHT?!?
Well it is, if you or I won it as in the Euro-lottery – but it isn’t, not when you consider that the City requires just over R 300 billion to meet both new infrastructure and regular maintenance requirements. For those of you good at math – you will have realised that the current capital budget is just over 2% of the total budget required by the City.
I ask you to pause for a minute and consider how this budget deficit results in backlog and this backlog continues to grow year on year into perpetuity. I also ask you to consider this figure when any of you, as residents, decide to pump excess pool water onto the road or when any of your contractor’s trucks rampage through our suburb and undermine the integrity of our streets. It’s happened in Sandhurst – where Empire Road is a disaster - at least in part, because thousands of litres of water is pumped each month onto the road by residents.
For those of you are guilty – or whose neighbours are guilty – the by-laws require you to pump your pool water directly into the storm water drains. Please make sure you do so. There is no golden pot under the rainbow. We need to preserve what we have. Going forward expect the CRA and I, working together, to be running a harsh campaign against offenders.
Continuing on this point – I want you to consider 3 important facts about the City’s finances:
- The City’s current assets versus current liabilities ratio has declined from an already poor 0.71:1 last year to an appalling 0.66:1 this year. Putting this in perspective, the Municipal Finances Act requires the ratio of assets to liabilities to be at least 1:1, with municipalities considered to be in good shape when assets outstrip liabilities by a ratio of 2:1.
Those of us not working in high finance, such as myself, might wonder what the significance of this ratio might be?
Simply put, it means that the City can only find 66c out of every rand owed from immediately liquid assets. - The ratio of interest bearing debt to revenue is at 54%. Simply put, if you were a commercial company and you got to this point – people would say you can’t pay your bills and no one would want to extend you credit. You would be for all intents and purpose commercially insolvent and shut down.
Think about that. If our City was a private entity – it would no longer be operating - The actual revenue collection rate in the City is probably only about 60% - despite MMC’s Tau’ protestations to the contrary. FACT - 40% of those eligible to pay rates are not paying. That’s almost 1 in 2.To make matters worse – the City’s outstanding debt currently stands at R 8 billion. Yes R 8 billion. This figure excludes the R2.8 billion that was written-off in the previous financial year. Again by way of perspective – if we add-up all the debt owed to the City that has been written-off by the current administration since 2005 – it adds up to a grand total of more than half the current cost of the Gautrain.
Yes - HALF OF ANOTHER GAUTRAIN.
The fact of the matter is, is that the City is in a mess. A very serious mess. For those of you who think that I am trying to score cheap political points here – don’t believe me –believe the Honourable Mayor Amos Masondo, who admitted as much in his State of the City speech delivered in Council at the beginning of March. His speech can be accessed on the City’s Website at www.joburg.org.za. It makes for interesting reading.
Returning to our the poem -
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Are full of passionate intensity.
The third point I want to touch on tonight, is that of the increasing tide of corruption and maladministration that affects each and every resident across the country; and which has become a common feature of all spheres of government.
Without even engaging in the horror that is Julius Malema, and all the ill that he bodes for the future of our non-racial, non-sexist and still developing democracy; high profile examples of corruption that have been uncovered in recent months include:
- Brian Hlongwe – the former MEC for Health in Gauteng who is currently under investigation for defrauding the Department of Health of R1.4 billion, after DA MPL Jack Bloom leaked proof of his impropriety to the media. Honourable Hlongwe is currently Chief Whip of the ANC in the National Assembly.
- Closer to home the CEO of Johannesburg City Parks, XXXX was found to be involved in XXXXX and has been suspended pending an investigation. Corruption is rife and on the increase. It’s a complex problem to be sure but one that can be rooted out. On this issue, the DA has is once again leading the way. Just last week, Premier Helen Zille unveiled carefully crafted legislation that will prevent any state employee or their families from doing business with the Province, because of the clear conflict of interest that this presents. The DA will be tabling the same legislation as a private members bill in the National Assembly in the coming weeks - as a direct challenge to the ANC to follow our lead and root our corruption in government.
Having contextualised the dilemma we face, I want to suggest to you tonight, as my final point, that we as residents are all complicit in the decline we are witnessing in our City.
Our apathy, our lack of involvement, our disinterest - has become endemic. To demonstrate my point – let me use share 3 anecdotal examples with you:
- RA’s - a vital first line of community management – across the Ward are increasingly ignored and struggle to obtain community buy-in and support. In Craighall/Park approximately 15% of all households commit funds and support to the CRA – who by the way work tirelessly to improve service delivery, support your property prices and ensure that residents receive value for the rates
- Only 4 in 10 residents in this Ward cast their ballot in the last local government election. Only 2 in 10 participated in the by-election that saw me elected in 2009.
- The Ward Committee’s recently launched Lets Fix It Campaign, which requires significant community support to be successful– has received less than 115 emails of support. This is in fact dire when you consider that there are over 20 000 households in the Ward.
The point is – local government is no longer a spectator sport. The days where communities paid their rates and received adequate services in return are long gone.
We are not the City’s priority. The City is poorly managed. The City is under severe financial strain. Corruption is endemic. For our community to survive and in fact for community to prosper WE THE RESIDENTS WILL NEED TO BECOME INVOLVED.
SURE YOU SAY – WE HAVE HEARD THIS BEFORE.
Let me emphasise my point – going forward those communities that will prosper will be those that:
- Pool their resources – (e.g Parkmore Community Association)
- Work together as a collective towards common goals (PCA – wireless/security/ road closures)
- Consistently engage with the City and establish personal relationships with Official and administrators (PCA – own City manager)
- Consistently report service delivery failures (CRA)
- ·Those that take initiative (Blairgowrie/Sandhurst) and
- Those that don’t take no for an answer (Sandhurst)
Get Involved
Change the government
Take a long term view
