It's infuriating, but we will have to rely on private sector to save us
Friday night, just as I was sitting down to watch MasterChef Australia, there was a big bang outside. The South Easter had been blowing as only the mighty South Easter can in Cape Town, so I assumed my black wheelie bin had taken flight to District Six down the road again.
I clung onto my fence as I walked outside, but the wheelie bin was still there. Safely back inside a neighbour - whose house is higher than mine - called. It turned out two of my new solar panels had blown off their brackets and were now ready to take flight.
My heart sank. It was just before 7pm on a Friday night, so I was sure that there would be no chance of getting anyone to come and help. I texted the sales rep of the solar company. He phoned back immediately. “Leave it with me,” he said.
Less than 20 minutes later the owner of the company was at my door, followed in short succession by their chief electrical engineer and their installation team.
With the wind still howling and now in the pitch dark, they donned safety harnesses and climbed onto the roof of my two-storey house to secure the panels (It was too dangerous to take them down in the wind).
It was 9 pm by the time they had finished.
Needless to say, I was not only thankful, but also mightily impressed.
This made me think of a talk I did earlier that day. During question time I was asked by a businessman for anything positive in the political domain. I struggled to find something.
Yet, while there is very little that excites or gives me hope from a political point of view at the moment, the men from this solar company reminded me that the survival of this country is not only in the hands of politicians and officials.
Private sector – business, farmers and individual citizens - can, and are, making a huge difference.
For example, the pothole patrol: a joint initiative by Discovery and Dial Direct in Johannesburg that has fixed 100 000 potholes in just one year! That would most probably have taken the City of Johannesburg about 500 years to do. (I’m exaggerating, but you get my point.)
Similarly in Cape Town, the City and businesses joined forces years ago to make the inner city safer. The results were almost immediately visible and today the area is vibrant and busy even at night.
It is not only private businesses that are jumping in to help.
Farmers have, for example, fixed hundreds of thousands of kilometres of public roads all across the country.
According to a report in City Press a while ago, ZZ2, the largest tomato producer in the country, has a full-time road maintenance department which maintains about 250 kilometres of public roads per year in Limpopo.
Senwes in the Free State also has its own yellow roadwork machines to make sure the farmers can get their maize to the silos. In Harrismith, Free State, the local farmers’ associations, taxi associations, and traditional council have reached an agreement to work together to repair roads.
Small farmers and individual citizens are also stepping in where the state fails.
Residents of Itireleng village, which falls under the Madibeng Local Municipality in the North West, fixed their pothole-ridden roads after their pleas for help fell on the local council’s deaf ears. Despite their own poverty people donated cement, pipes, and stone, and some even gave small amounts of money. About thirty people turned up and within a day what the council found impossible to do for years was done.
In Roodepoort, guys from Dawn’s Pawn shop couldn’t take the stench from the blocked storm water drains, so they took action and unblocked the drains with help from volunteers.
Of course, these are jobs that local, provincial and national authorities should be doing. It is why we pay (hefty) taxes. Yet, it seems that instead of doing their jobs, councillors are more interested in who wears the mayoral chain, while their colleagues in provincial and national government are not doing much better.
This means that - as infuriating as it is -WE have to step in if we don’t want things to fall apart completely.
The events of Friday night reminded me that there is still so much excellence and goodwill in this country. Yes, the state and officials are mostly failing us, but like, me there seems to be thousands of people who are not ready to give up on the country.
So, while the government is trying to get their act together, let’s continue to strive for excellence and roll up our sleeves where we can.
(PS: A big thanks to James, Andrew, Happy and the rest of the Tree Top Solar team for giving me hope again – and of course saving the solar panels).