Do you know what I love the most about Cape Town (aside from the barely contained social angst lurking behind the tanned smiles, bleached teeth and carefully lined eyes)? Everything works. I’m not suggesting that the city is a super-streamlined machine, devoid of kinks, functioning at optimal... um... functionality. It’s no utopia, but it beats the hell out of hiking three kilometres up a mountain to fetch your drinking water (Grahamstown) and at least our Home Affairs has shelves (P.E.)
Granted, both my examples are set in the Eastern Cape, and one could argue that they have a valid reason behind their slip in services.
Makana Municipality recently set up a multimillion-Rand government-funded research department to investigate and analyse what is being tagged as ‘The Event’. Two city councillors were sitting by the highway, throwing rocks at cars, when one accidently dropped his speckled stone. There was a flash of light and the surrounding grass began to glow a bright orange and yellow. Almost immediately, the grass began to crackle and turn black. To their surprise, the councillors discovered the strange radiance to be incredibly hot when they burnt their hands trying to pick it up, and inedible, when they burnt their mouths.
Officials believe that this curious energy could be the key to vastly increased production and a drastic change in lifestyle for all South Africans. To this end, the majority of Eastern Cape developmental funding is being channelled into the study and attempted reproduction of this event, what has become dubbed as the “Ow-wi Orange Shoo-Shoo.”
All other provincial services have subsequently been put on hold.
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| The Eastern Cape Premier takes science seriously. |
Other provinces, however, have little to no excuse. Xenophobia in Gauteng, the elderly in the Northern Cape and pronunciation in Kwazulu Natal; all of these are rampant problems that have yet to be correctly addressed.
