A friend once said that there is nothing more troubling than having to deal with a troubled leadership. I experienced this myself recently when I noticed that our bathroom and kitchen taps had really low pressure.
A friend once said that there is nothing more troubling than having to deal with a troubled leadership. I experienced this myself recently when I noticed that our bathroom and kitchen taps had really low pressure.
Being reasonable, we thought it was just one of those days when the overall pressure in town is under strain. But a day later, all hell broke loose when we were completely out of water. This time I lost my cool and said some unprintable words about our municipal incompetence.
I live with my girlfriend and our little boy in Campbell Street near the taxi rank. When we phoned our housing agency, ReMax, they gave us a number to call. I thought this was really unacceptable but we were desperate.
A pleasant sounding gentleman picked up and, to my surprise, I politely asked him to send someone out. Usually I'm very tjatjarag around people who fail to do what they get paid for (its peanuts, I know, but still, it’s my money).
The said gent nicely told me that the lady from ReMax had already called and they were to send out someone on standby to come and be of assistance. Good, very good, I thought.
The following morning, angry and still in my briefs, I decided to go check with the guy next door if he had any water. He didn't so we decided to call again. This time we got a lady, who even asked for our phone number, we thought "aha, now they’ll even call us when somebody comes". Good service, we thought.
Now listen to this (*drum roll*). Nothing happened. We are entering day two without water. Our son hasn’t eaten or been bathed, but it's not the end of the world as our junior is still new to the world so he has other options.
I go straight to the fire department where I found a lady on duty and politely told her of our ordeal. “We have already called someone to come to your place and that person says he hooted and nobody responded,” said she.
I went completely ballistic at this point because it’s either a lie, or some person decided to hoot at a house near a taxi rank and actually thought that makes sense! I asked her to call him again to come and do what he gets paid for. Her answer: “You see, I cannot just call him because the guy stays at the location.”
At this stage her colleague, a frail white male who looks like those dudes who never played a single type of sport at school asked: “Is this a customer?” I almost said, “Doofus, I am a damn taxpayer,” but held back because I could have ended up showing pretty boy that some sport could have saved him from losing a tooth or two.
The man of the moment (the plumber) was finally called with the name Ta Kaiser or some such. When he arrived in a municipal bakkie, he just opened something outside the house, did nothing, and then told me that he thought there was no water at the dam. “What? You think?” I could tell he was not used to people questioning his level of understanding.
He decided we go to a nearby businessman and ask if he had water or not. I could tell from the way he said it that he wished the old man had water so he could accuse me of not paying my bill. I wish he knew exactly what was wrong and said so instead of giving me the idea that he was going to do something about it.
I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing with the municipal car if he had no idea what was going on within his portfolio. How many people are like that in government departments? A lot, I believe.
An Indian businessman who operates just around the corner summed it up well when he said that when you miss a payment you get cut off, but when the municipality fails you, you have no recourse at all. I agree and I think that as taxpayers we need recourse for this kind of incompetence.
We need a governance tribunal where people who are not doing their jobs are penalised. As I am writing this, there is still no water or any word from the municipality. Buying drinking water must be a choice, not something one does because you are cornered. I personally need an apology from whoever is responsible. He must take me out for lunch and buy me bottled water while he goes thirsty.
Floyd Musekwa is a freelance journalist who studied at the School Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University. Until this incident, he had everything good to say about his adopted town, Grahamstown.
