The threat to our prosperity (if not survival) is not in the hands of the government of national unity (GNU), but rather closer to home: among us, in our streets, in our suburbs, in our cities.
Unless treated urgently, organ failure is fatal to human beings. Unlike fish, we mostly don’t “rot from the head down” — we die from infections or trauma if there is no intervention.
Organs in our bodies are a bit like a network of specialist, purpose-specific but interdependent functions, kept alive by the oxygenated, nutrient-carrying life blood that races around in our veins and arteries.
After a first organ failure, the survival rate of the entire body decreases dramatically with each additional one — from about two-thirds after two failures to about 10% after four. No-one has ever survived more than five.
Our cities (big and small) are failing, particularly in Gauteng, because of specific issues, such as sewage in the streets of Mogale City, lack of water in Hammanskraal and sporadic “load-reduction” to replace load-shedding. Or, more generally, through broad-based causes such as death-spiral-inducing financial mismanagement, revolving-door inept leadership, or simply a lack of care and maintenance.
Cities are the root of our problems, but they’re also the right place to start solving them. There are any number of problems common to all cities, ranging from traffic to housing and services such as waste management, for which solutions must be found, despite vastly different circumstances on the ground.
We are great (and well practised) at problem definition. It wouldn’t take long to agree on a list of the top three (or 10) priorities that need to be addressed to rescue our cities from further decay and ultimate failure. Actually fixing things is another matter entirely.
Solutions need to be implemented locally and physically, but they can be found centrally, “on the blackboard”, among experts. Any number of our cities’ problems have been encountered (and solved) elsewhere in the world, and those solutions can be adapted to our local situations, despite clearly different circumstances in SA.
Grameen Bank India (GBI) presents an interesting case study of addressing the funding needs of the poor. When I last looked, GBI had loan book (to 10-million people, mostly women) in excess of $36bn, with bad debt of only 2%. Quite remarkable given the profile of its borrowers, the low-income and poor families of India.
GBI lends to participants in the Indian equivalent of our stokvels — group savings schemes typically including people who know each other and live in the same neighbourhood. The loans are at least half-secured by their cash savings, but the real reason for the low bad debt is vested interest (90% of GBI is owned by communities, 10% by the state) and peer group monitoring. You can’t just pitch up wearing a Rolex and get away with it.
Our cities will only be solved from the inside out. The divisions among us at city level are largely along political party lines, which results in frequent changes in cadre-deployed leadership (all parties), with tenures too short to achieve any meaningful, enduring change. The focus is on power, not progress. Councillors spend more energy fighting each other than solving the problems of the city.
Decentralised (within reason) decision-making, influence and oversight to the point where we’re picking up litter, not wasting water and assuring one another’s personal safety at street level under the watchful eye of our neighbours, offers the best chance of policy implementation. Nowhere to hide, nobody else to blame.
Otherwise, the problems are simply too distant and the numbers too big to get to grips with. As Gauteng sinks into the mire, it numbs us all to fight the ignorance, malfeasance and corruption that will destroy us, city by city, from the ground up.
Urgent intervention is required to avoid multiple city dysfunction syndrome. If too many fail, death of the entire civilised ecosystem will surely follow.
• Barnes is an investment banker with more than 35 years’ experience in various capacities in the financial sector.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.