Defend Truth

Opinionista

We all saw the Durban sewage crisis coming, but remained silent

mm

Dr Imraan Buccus is a senior research associate at the Auwal Socio-economic Research Institute and a postdoctoral fellow at Durban University of Technology.

It is long past time for us all to wake up and insist that every resident in Durban be treated with dignity and provided with the basic means for a decent life.

Tourism is, or was, central to the economy of Durban. You would think that the municipality would make protecting and developing the industry a key priority. But just as, at national level, electricity, the Post Office, the railways and more have been left to rot, so too has the deeply corrupt municipality in Durban squandered much of the tourism goose that lays the golden egg of employment.

Florida Road, which could once claim to be among the most attractive and convivial streets in the country, is now marred by ugly new developments, including fast food outlets and a monstrous building that looks like a parking garage. Rational urban planning has been abandoned for a free-for-all.

The city centre is full of uncollected rubbish and decaying buildings, and once elegant areas, like Musgrave, are in rapid decline.

But Durban’s great asset has always, of course, been the magnificent Indian Ocean, and its wonderful open beachfront. It’s Durban’s most democratic space and is known for many things – like its ability to flatten class lines in an unequal city.

But even here no care has been taken with protecting the city’s greatest asset. The grass along the beachfront has not even been cut. But that kind of neglect is the least of the city’s problems.

The real problem is the sewage crisis. Many beaches remain closed and people are convinced that it’s not safe to swim even at the beaches that have been reopened.

Escherichia coli (E. coli) levels remain critical. The acceptable level for the ocean is 500 counts per 100ml and the level at most beaches along Durban’s coast is well above this.

There are two reasons for this crisis.


Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations


Jobs-for-pals system

One is the simple neglect and lack of investment, compounded by the jobs-for-pals system that has wrecked so much of our infrastructure, including Eskom.

The other is that around a third of the city’s population live in shacks and most of these people do not have access to basic sanitation.

Just as the riots last year showed that leaving people to go hungry would, in the end, create a crisis for everyone, we are now seeing that years of neglect of the poor has created another crisis for everyone.

It’s not rocket science that if people don’t have sanitation sewage, it will end up in rivers and then, the sea.

We all should have seen this coming. We all should have supported shack dwellers when they started organising themselves, as early as 2005, to demand toilets.

But most of us were silent as the state tried to crush them and silence their voices. Now Durban faces an ecological crisis that is also going to produce an economic crisis.

This would never have happened if we had treated everyone with basic human dignity and worked diligently to provide sanitation for all.

If the middle classes and the business elites don’t learn that we are all in this together, and that the city cannot be sustainable while the poor are left to go hungry or without basic amenities, we will just keep lurching from needless crisis to needless crisis.

It really is long past time for us all to wake up and insist that everyone resident in the city be treated with dignity and provided with the basic means for a decent life.

We cannot carry on as we have for more than a quarter of a century. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Sandra McEwen says:

    What is so sad is that those very same poor shack dwellers could vote the corrupt ANC out.

  • Willem Boshoff says:

    So now it’s the “middle classes and business elites” that need to learn we’re all in this together, never mind the exorbitant primary and secondary taxes being paid; but no call to democratic accountability for the governing party’s constituency who continues to vote into power the corrupt, the gangsters and the incompetents who squandered billions?

  • Glyn Morgan says:

    Great article that had to be written. Durban is a dump. It is the city where people take a dump in the bush/alleyway/parking lot/the sea. It has been a long time coming, ever since the ANC took over.

    Your headline states – “We all saw the Durban sewage crisis coming, but remained silent” – Wrong! The DA has been yelling it for yonks! It is time that the DM gave the DA the recognition it deserves.

  • Beyond Fedup says:

    Whatever this abominable ANC touches turns to crap. SOEs, municipalities etc. A most incompetent, useless, self- serving, arrogant, corrupt and criminal rabble! His ill-served this poor country has suffered over the last 15 to 18 years is truly appalling. And yet, the masses will keep on voting the same way. Tragic!

  • Rod H MacLeod says:

    There will be a breaking point. There are too few taxpayers in this country to pay for state capture, tenderpreneur wealth, overpaid and inept civil service, non-functioning police force, non-functioning defence force, mega-size parliament, free RDP housing, free electricity, free water, free education, social grants, a basic income grant PLUS still pay for the maintenance of roads, dams, water reticulation, sewerage and sanitation, basic healthcare, subsidisation of Eskom, Transnet, the Post Office ……….

  • Rob Wilson says:

    I find the description correct, but the underlying causes a bit confusing to say the least. Who votes for this bunch of muffins? For investment to happen, it requires the elected authority to supply some basics, like law and order, working power, water supply, roads, railways, harbours and yes, waste water disposal systems. Part of law and order is application and control of spatial planning objectives, which seem beyond any ANC council in the entire country. If you let people settle and build in a water course they will get swept away and drowned. You are right, its not rocket science. But try telling that to the landed elite in the city council before pointing at business or the middle class who actually pay taxes.

  • Malcolm Mitchell says:

    Having mentored about young engineering graduates of all races and both sexes in the Durban municipality towards professional registration for the past decade or so I can say that there are pockets of sound engineering in the organization. However, the problem is that their views and warnings are not heeded by their ‘non-professional’ superiors who primarily comprise politically appointed “hacks” with no competence. The sad part is that 90% or so of the competent young engineers have told me that the minute they are professionally registered they are on their way to seek employment overseas. mainly in Holland and Ireland. Those already registered have done so!

    • John Counihan says:

      In terms of brainstorming solutions to the predicament, this contribution by Mally2 reveals an interesting phenomenon: where are the black youth in bringing to an end their elders’ destruction of our country? instead of rising up in our own “Arab Spring”, they choose to emigrate. is it culturally not-on to stand up and fight?

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.