I was recently chatting to a friend who lives in Johannesburg and he mentioned the sorry state of the streets in his part of the city.
Deep potholes were everywhere and motorists had to be pretty lively to avoid them. I smugly told him there were no potholes in any of the roads in my area.
I told him we had a telephone number dedicated to pothole repair, and if we called to report one, it wasn’t long before a team of workers arrived and filled it. I know our system works because I once reported a pothole in a Muizenberg street close to where a friend of mine lived and in less than a day a team arrived and fixed it.
I have had similar experiences with our electricity department. The sea air corrodes the wires outside my house and every once in a while my electricity supply is cut off. I call the electricity chaps and have never had to wait more than an hour or so before the truck arrives and the power is reconnected.
My Johannesburg friend said they had a similar call centre in Gauteng, but calls to the number were seldom answered. “You can hear it ringing for hours,” he said. “Eventually you give up and put down the phone, or they simply switch off the call.”
He said on one occasion he did get through and reported a large pothole. The result was less than impressive. A few of days after his report an official arrived with a can of red spray paint, sprayed a ring of red around the pothole and went away. Apparently the red was to show that officials were aware of the problem.
They didn’t fill the pothole, but it is now more visible. Big deal. So, although I begrudge the unfairly high municipal bills I receive, I have to admit the city does work for us. It certainly does not work cheaply, but it works, which is more than can be said for most other South African cities. My Johannesburg friend said he added up all the tax he was paying for living in a non-functioning city.
After paying income tax on his earnings, he was charged another 15% VAT on anything he bought with what was left. But before he paid his VAT he was charged additional taxes on petrol, liquor and tobacco products, and then another 15% on what he had already paid tax on. He estimated that of every rand he earned, only 30 cents was eventually his to spend. Ours is indeed funny money.
Last Laugh
An elderly man never called his wife by her real name. He always called her Sweetheart, or Honey, or Lovey or Darling. A friend remarked he thought it was wonderful to still be so affectionate after all those years. “Actually,” said the old man, “the truth is I forgot what her real name was years ago.”
* "Tavern of the Seas" is a daily column written in the Cape Argus by David Biggs. Biggs can be contacted at [email protected]
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.