LEBOGANG MOKOENA | We have no roads, no homes and sewage in the ocean, but let us pray

It is not uncommon to hear people hark back to the dark days of apartheid. Worse, those who do are black South Africans. It’s sad when the people who were denied basic human decency look back through rose-tinted glasses because of government failures. 

Such was the case over the holidays, when many travel to visit family or take a “sho’t left”. Conversations did not focus on life's joys or the triumphs and lessons of the year, but the country's sorry state.

Public infrastructure is appalling, from disintegrating roads to dysfunctional sewage treatment facilities.

Potholes are not new, as the government would have us believe. Since the advent of modern roads they have been a feature. What is new, however, is having them on major roads.

One does not have to drive to some backwater on the outskirts of town to encounter such. Just inside the Johannesburg CBD is a traffic-halting gape that has been there for more than a year. Instead of fixing it, the city has partitioned it, attempting to perhaps pray away its incompetence. 

More dangerous is missing tar on badly lit national highways. Travelling at night puts your life on the line.

With our rail infrastructure languishing in scrap yards, trucks have multiplied on our roads, further damaging them. In South Africa, 80% of goods are moved by such vehicles to keep the country functioning, but they are dangerous.

The government has watched with folded arms as this has worsened, especially during lockdown. How people who were not supposed to move around managed to strip train stations and steal overhead cables is a feat only possible in this country.

Fikile Mbalula will ride off into the sunset to occupy his comfy Luthuli House office as the new ANC secretary-general, spared the consequences of his disastrous tenure as transport minister. No surprise, considering his terms as police and sport minister. 

Tourism infrastructure is no better. I cringed recently when news surfaced that some KwaZulu-Natal municipalities will contribute about R8m to host the holy pilgrimage of a million Shembe followers. This is the same province in which more than 4,000 people were displaced during 2022's floods. The damage is estimated at R17bn.

Tourism revenue for Durban will no doubt come in at record lows, with many beaches closed during the festive season due to E coli in the water. E coli, dear reader, is introduced into seawater when human faeces contaminates it.

What goes on in the minds of politicians? How can millions of rand be spent on a religious event when sewage is flowing into the sea and making people sick?

Those who bear the brunt of government incompetence are always the poor, those who depend on these roads to go to work, those who depend on tourism to earn a living and those who vote for a government that simply does not care. 

The ANC has failed spectacularly at its job. Little wonder then that people overlook the indignity of the past and its functioning infrastructure, all thanks to this government.

• Lebo is the Sunday Times and TimesLIVE community manager