Potholes: Another handy place to sink your taxes into

I’m pretty sure that not even the ANC knew how useful the potholes they hadn’t attended to all these years, were going to become so soon after President Zuma announced that 2011 was to be the year of Job Creation…and the Chinese announced the Year of the Rabbit.

With images in my mind of ANC politicians making a routine habit of feeding at the trough, it’s perhaps lucky for us that this is not the Year of the Pig; although you’re going to be hopping mad by the time you have finished reading the rest of what troubles me.

In January the ANC-led government announced that they were going to spend around R150-million rands to fix potholes. Today they announced that the Transport Ministry was setting aside R6.4-billion in this fiscal year for an “innovative nationwide programme focusing on the maintenance of secondary road infrastructure using labour-intensive methods of construction and maintenance.” So what happened to swell the budget that much?

Did our ANC-government’s tenders-for-pals allocation scheme come in 42 times over-subscribed? Or are we expected to believe that it has now become the job of government to provide jobs?

Consider that just prior to the vacuous State of the Nation address by the President, it was also revealed, not surprisingly, that R58-billion would be required to fix poorly built houses that no doubt were constructed through the awarding of dubious tenders, and you get the sinking feeling that more of our tax money is heading for a black hole. Only this time it’s going to be many, many smaller holes that will hungrily gobble up your taxes, disappear for a while, and then reappear again begging for more.

Government to spend R150-million fixing potholes…but why do I still get a sinking feeling?

There’s no doubt that our roads are in a really wretched condition. Going practically anywhere by road feels like participating in a slalom race; for those who care about their vehicles, or who don’t own fancy 4 x 4’s.

So while I should be welcoming the commitment by government to spend R150-million to fix potholes, I have this nagging feeling that something is amiss, given their appalling track record in spending taxpayers money judiciously; even this modest sum.

There’s the bothersome issue about tenders for pals and competence. We’re all too aware of how unduly susceptible our government is, about handing out tenders to their friends and family, but even more disturbing is that these beneficiaries invariably produce shoddy work, which goes unchecked because of governments infamous maladministration practices.

While we’re all familiar with government sinking obscene amounts of money down a big black hole; this pothole project may just turn out to be a case of sinking a large sum of money down thousands of smaller holes.

With all the heavy rains we’ve been getting recently, and this repair project only scheduled to kick off in March of this year, let’s hope that they still have potholes to repair rather than entire roads.

Another shameful tale of government self-indulgence…or… the road less travelled is smoother, thanks

I read an article in the news media recently about a women who is suing the Kwa-Zulu Natal roads department, and the government, over the loss of a hand and part of a forearm in an accident, in which she was a passenger in a taxi.  Apparently the taxi overturned when the driver lost control after hitting a pothole on an extremely busy road.

I didn’t think too much about it the time, except that I hoped she got to screw them for as much as possible. As you may be aware by now, I am a big fan of anyone who gets to screw the government… back.

Anyway, I came across a follow-up to the story today, where the roads department is opposing the claim based on an unconvincing argument that they lacked the funds for road maintenance, so could not repair the pothole, which earlier evidence indicated could have been repaired for a measly 500 hundred bucks. However that was not what caught my interest, which incidentally, led to full-blown anger as I completed reading the article. No, my anger was the result of the revelation that in about the same fiscal year, the roads department blew around five and half million bucks tarring a quiet country road that runs past the Minister of  Transport, Sbu Ndebele’s country residence – a road that apparently is used by about 20 cars a day, according to court evidence by a local.

I have heard of many incidents involving motorists hitting potholes on our slowly deteriorating road network, most of which fortunately result in damage to the cars only. However, it galls me to think, as I slalom my way to work and back every day, about the sick bastards in government who not only squander our tax money on luxury SUV’s, but on getting fresh tar layed out for them as they drive as well.