The Daily Dispatch E-Edition

Fix the roads instead of pretending to be shocked by them

On Thursday this paper ran a poster: “ANC shocked by E Cape roads.” Judging by social media reactions, the poster left many people shocked. It was based on two reports run on the day. One report was about deputy minister in the presidency Thembi Siweya who visited Gaduka Junior Secondary School near Mthatha, on Wednesday. She was shocked after being forced to travel on a dilapidated, mud-soaked gravel road filled with dongas.

She remarked: “It [the ride] was difficult. I actually felt like the car would overturn and roll,” adding that as a listening government: “I am sure when I speak to the premier and the MEC something will happen”.

Probably something that she didn’t know was that the Eastern Cape ANC was equally alarmed at the state of the province’s roads. On the same day we reported that the ANC provincial leadership had recently met with mayors at which a big concern was raised that about 90% of provincial roads were still gravel, while a mere 10% had been surfaced even while Bhisho faces a maintenance funding deficit of R3bn.

Siweya should understand that her few hours of “difficult ride” is what many people — including children trying to study their way out of poverty and their transporters, who are frequently paid late — endure every day. When it rains many pupils cannot attend school at all. Politicians cannot fail to know this as they use these very roads to canvass for votes.

It is disingenuous of the provincial ANC to give an impression that they didn’t know about these things, not to mention their causes. The ANC has been in power for almost 30 years and infrastructure failures are a reflection of its policies, chief among them the moribund cadre deployment system.

Intentionally or otherwise, the system results in the employment of incompetent or unqualified personnel. In 2016 we reported on infrastructure projects worth millions of rand being abandoned, allegedly because the person in charge had a social sciences qualification and not an engineering one. How do you justify that?

How many times have we heard about calls of “ringfencing” infrastructure grants but the money being diverted to pay salaries? Conversely, grants are rolled back to treasury because municipalities fail to spend them. Irregular and fruitless expenditure have become the order of the day in most municipalities in the province and all of this with seeming total impunity.

Until the province sees action taken against those failing the people, politicians’ postures of shock about roads will likely continue to invite the derision they deserve.

Politicians cannot fail to know this as they use these very roads to canvass for votes

Opinion

en-za

2023-01-30T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-30T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://dispatch.pressreader.com/article/281840057806155

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