By the time this posting hits the virtual ‘airwaves’ the South African March 1, 2006 local elections will be history. But there are some fine lessons to be learned from the process.
I’ve tracked the media exposure of our opportunistically empathic, baby-kissing, geriatric-comforting politicians in their desperate bid to garner the last vote. I’m left bemused and disgusted. A recent article in the erudite Journal for Convergence (our local ‘Harvard Business Review’) by IMD Professor of Organizational behaviour, Robert Hooijberg, deals with integrity in leadership. Our politicos would clearly benefit from a session with him.
Even minister of public enterprises, Alec Erwin, has earned my contempt for claiming, on the eve of the local elections, that the Koeberg nuclear power station failures have been caused by ‘sabotage’. If he had half a communications brain, he would have ‘revealed’ that dubious bit of information the first time Slaapstad was rendered powerless. Then it would have been a PR coup because it would have attracted sympathy, support and understanding. Now it will be seen for what I suspect it is – to get some eve-of-election support for the ANC. Hmm…that integrity article again.
The ANC doesn’t need support of course. The incredible paradox of Africa is that recent research surveys show that more people are likely to vote as a result of the conflict surrounding the incorporation of Khutsong and other townships into ‘new’ geographic zones. Such is the lack of sophistication of the voters concerned that they’re deemed more likely to vote/have voted for the ANC as a result of their anger and confusion surrounding how best to deal with the matter. Speaking of which, if press reports are correct, it sounds like defence minister and ANC chairman Mosiuoa Lekota, is in line for a refresher in communication skills and a brush-up on how to address his black elders with a modicum of respect. This after his abortive attempt to calm tensions in Khutsong.
At 02:45 of 1st March election day I was awakened by my alarm system indicating that we were experiencing yet another power failure. What Parktown North did in a past incarnation to deserve so many outages now, only the ancestors know. And probably only because they were present when the now antique cables and infrastructure were installed. I immediately called the oxymoronically named ‘Johannesburg Connect’. In my circle they’re referred to as ‘Jo’burg Disconnect’. Having listened through the recording announcing ‘extensive’ power failures in South Hills and Ophirton, I got to lodge my complaint. I clearly ruined the sleep of the call-centre attendant to whom I had to repeat the same items of information several times.
To cut a long story short, 6 and one quarter hours later we had power back again. Jo’burg Disconnect’s promise is a 4 hour turn around time – which is outrageously slow anyhow. Once again we’ll have to cook the frozen fish from the deep freeze rather than risk it having partially thawed and refrozen. I even have a default two days ahead of event protocol now for printing out documents and learning-guides I’ll need for coaching sessions. Leaving them to even one day before the event has becoming very risky due to the utter unreliability of the electricity supply in Johannesburg. I wonder, really wonder, what impact on foreign investment confidence our inexorably and irreversibly crumbling infrastructure is already having? Would you go start a business or build a factory where (as in the case of the Cape fruit co-operatives) your entire season’s pickings could be ruined by refrigeration failure courtesy of the power utility? I think not.
The great irony is this: I open my Star Newspaper on 1st March 2006 to find the bottom of page 2 colonised by a page-wide ad for Johannesburg City. There were several other, similar, hagiography-type ads in the same edition. It’s hilarious. I think the originators of the ads must be smoking their socks. And maybe the solution is for us to start smoking ours as well. Because then we’ll enjoy the mass hallucination that the local councils are indeed delivering. Despite (taking just Johannesburg) a chaotic water, electricity and rates billing system, ‘unrecoverable’ debt write-offs to the tune of hundreds of millions, pot-holed roads, missing manhole and drain covers resulting in regular loss of (primarily paediatric) life, water pipes bursting, chronic water leakage in underground pipes, a failing sewage and electricity infrastructure, eternally failing traffic lights, filth and inner city decay that makes Dar es Salaam look like Geneva by comparison, etc. etc. ad nauseam. I think the main problem with the ad is the payoff line: ‘The world class African city’. It should read: ‘The third-world-class African City’. Then at least we couldn’t be accused of a lack of integrity.
There’s an upside to all of this. Corrupt politicians have a growth industry opportunity spawned by their ineptitude and lack of integrity. They can go buy a franchise for home electricity generators. We’re all going to need them this upcoming Winter. They’ll make yet another killing at the expense of the unthinking idiots who voted them into office. A luta continua!
Post-script: God-gospel truth. At the exact instant I finished writing this piece, the power has gone off yet again. I’m checking the corners of my ceiling for concealed video cameras…. The guy on day-shift at Jo’burg Disconnect and I are developing quite a relationship. He recognises my voice now. Or then maybe it’s just the hysterical tone…
It’s surely also time for someone to write a counterpoint to that disingenuously titled book, ‘South Africa – the good news’ by the imbongi (praise singer) duet of Stuart Pennington and Brett Bowes? Any offers?
Related Tags: Politicians, Ethics, Integrity, Manipulation, Gullibility, Voters, Foreign Investment, Investment confidence, Opportunism
Here's the intro from Jean Green's MARFA newsletter...
www.marfa.co.za
'This needs to be a short newsletter, friends!
We are beset by power cuts in the Western Cape and some of us are anxious about our computers being affected by the on again-off again situation.
So, this is a short communication to say that we hope all the Western Capers are managing through this frustrating time and that the rest of you remember us from time to time!'
Maybe someone can tell Jean about UPS devices?
Posted by: Illuminati | Wednesday, 01 March 2006 at 15:59