PUNISH LITTERBUGS
It’s amazing how first-world countries (SA not included) handle litter at large festivals and public gatherings. They have active and dedicated staff who enforce a no-litter policy throughout the event.
The utter mess along our beachfront this year is disgraceful. But what can we expect from a useless municipality and police force in Gqeberha, who cannot enforce much of anything, let alone keep our city clean.
Not to mention most of the litter could have easily found its way into our oceans had we had a heavy westerly wind the next day. Littering on this scale falls on the individuals, and it clearly conveys the mindset, ignorance and arrogance of the revellers.
In a recent incident in Cape Town, a local tour guide stopped to engage an individual who arrogantly threw his trash out of his vehicle and subsequently received so much backlash on social media that the person handed himself over to authorities and received a R500 fine. I doubt he felt any remorse.
The sheer arrogance of that individual, the lack of self-pride and his nonchalant approach to his actions are common in SA, and it shows. Civilised people don’t generally s**t on their own doorstep. Where is the Nelson Mandela Bay ratepayers association in all of this? What would the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds’ thoughts and actions be on this? What will PE Tourism be doing about this?
J Walker
UNCHECKED BOOZING IN PUBLIC
I just saw the disgusting state of our beachfront. I wonder if that bunch will ask us to bring our sunscreen and hats to clean up their s**t? By the way, what happened to the no public drinking joke?
Disgusted resident
LAND ISSUES
Your columnist Xolisa Faku states the land “is still largely in white hands”. Poppycock. Government statistics, not me, will correct him. Why not mention that 95% of former productive farmland handed to the disadvantaged is now wasteland? That includes Zebidela Estates, once the biggest citrus entity in the southern hemisphere. Go figure and stop adding this invective rubbish into our dialogue.
Onlooker
REWARDING INCOMPETENCE
Is it open season for salary increases for public servants? Increases in salaries are approved and given left, right and centre to councillors in NMB and to MPs and the presidents. What justifies the salary increase for councillors in NMB when our city is broken? Poor sanitation, water outages, no service delivery, filthy areas, and yet they justify a salary increase for councillors.
Salary increases should be coupled to performance and service delivery. Do councillors even meet their key performance areas when they are evaluated annually (are they even evaluated)? There should be a quality management system in place to evaluate the performance of the councillors. Alas, all this means nothing when the mayor scores herself a hefty 80% for her performance while in office. All her promises equate to nothing, as nothing came to fruition.
Madam mayor, the councillors take their cue from you when they do their work. There is more squabbling about issues than reaching an amicable solution to serve the people of the metro.
Last, what qualification does one need to be a councillor or MP? Surely there must be a minimum tertiary qualification for a public servant to understand good corporate governance. As long as we have no appraisal for mediocre performance, we will remain a broken city and a sorry state. Cry, my beloved country and city, NMB.
Elroy Swart
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