The mayor of Ekurhuleni was bragging recently about Ekurhuleni being voted the best performing (Gauteng) metro in terms of delivering quality services to the citizens.
The above was arrived at by a Quality of Life survey carried out by some Gauteng governmental department. The survey was to ascertain citizens’ perceptions on governance, service delivery, socio-economic development and quality of life.
This is very enlightening. What is classified as “quality services?”
I’m fairly certain the latter does not include properly functioning traffic and street lights, general road maintenance, the uninterruptible supply of electricity and (clean) water.
What about the simple task of keeping towns clean?
The question to be asked is, are these “quality services” we supposedly receive value for money? Tricky when there are tender irregularities, fraud and wasteful expenditure.
Oh yes, and regular (before elections) writing off of billions of supposedly uncollectable debt. (This is a “quality service” rendered to our voters.) The other one we mustn’t forget, lots of food and drink for any occasion.
We could also reason that the other Gauteng metros are automatically disqualified because they are under DA control.
Mr Mayor, what about the other survey topics like governance, socio-economic development and quality of life? We know governance is somewhat murky. The other two are closely linked – our towns are degraded and filthy and besides blowing R100m on bursaries, what does the metro do for all the NGOs battling to help the poor and needy?
Get into the festive spirit and forget about feeding your faces to overcapacity – donate this money to the above NGOs.
This falls under the category of fruitful expenditure.
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