LEBOGANG MOKOENA | Bomb squad or flop squad? Dada Morero's bad joke

South Africa is a country devoid of answers and this is not specific to one area, field or locale, it’s in everything. We seem to suffer from common sense malnourishment, but no group is as malnourished as the chaps we elect to office. These are the special bunch of people who fly through traffic lights, drive in yellow lanes and then come back and preach safe driving and the need to follow the law. That’s if they don’t pull you over and attempt to speed up meeting your maker. 

Enter one Dada Morero, the mayor of Johannesburg who announced while delivering his state of the city address that he will establish a service delivery “bomb squad”. I fail to see how a tactical formation that has worked for the Springboks can form the basis and thinking of how to fix a city long past the brink of destruction. Maybe I am naive and ignorant, perhaps deploying a forward-heavy bench with a 6-2 or 7-1 split will do wonders for Jozi.

I love how our leaders overcomplicate the most mundane things. Do we need a gung-ho approach to fixing a pipe leak? Do we need to declare war on potholes that take ages to form and grow? How is a state of disaster going to clear a hijacked building, stop lawlessness, cease the decay and help South Africans feel safe when walking in Hillbrow? I suppose Morero will shut down the city so some chaps in reflective vests can reprogram a traffic light? How many politicians does it take to fix a light bulb? Sounds to me like the service delivery bomb squad is the beginning of a bad joke.

One only needs to travel through the inner city to see how Morero’s grand vision is foggy at best. Once a “world class African city”, Johannesburg is a gentrified garb of mass in need of leadership. Johannesburg is not a place where people look forward to practising their trade, live or play. Johannesburg is a place where you go to get mugged while trying to catch a taxi to somewhere else.

Morero needs to wake up and smell the sewage. To get this city working again his administration needs to focus its efforts on attracting businesses back. He needs to facilitate people being employed in the city. People tend to love and take care of something that feeds and sustains them. Now, the city is only feeding criminals and is a hotbed for betting shops.

It does not help that the people running nearby Ekurhuleni are no different. Ten years ago you could point to the strides being taken there and say it’s possible — not anymore.

Just the other day, the good people at the Ekhurhuleni road maintenance department did what any sensible and well-paid arm of local government does: they fixed a patchy bit of road after years of complaining by residents, including this writer.

What they did after laying fresh tar still baffles me a month later. They repainted the markings, but only repainted the 300 or so metres of new tar. The rest of the road, where markings are a rumour, is not their concern. The residents of Ekurhuleni will need to imagine the road marking and hope the people speeding in the opposite direction have a good sense of direction because the lights also don’t work. 

Where do we find answers to the problems of our own making? When the bomb squad bombs, I wonder which sporting code our leaders will turn to next. It might be time to keep abreast of any sporting triumphs before our politicians introduce them in their next manifestos. 

In all honesty, I don’t expect much from Morero’s bomb squad. If the push and pull in the government of the country is anything to go by, Morero will be on his way long before Lillian Ngoyi Street is operational.