Port Elizabeth - my home town, the city on the southeast coast of South Africa's Eastern Cape province - has long been the mounting cause for concern and anger on the part of many residents - but aside from them, on my part as well.
Let me start my rant about the state of Port Elizabeth by addressing the most recent insult to residents - the pointless and utterly unnecessary name change which took place in 2022.
First of all, the name was changed without the consent or consultation with anyone who actually lives here. I don't know who was consulted about it, in fact nobody I know was consulted about it - and I know I definitely wasn't either.
It might've helped if there was a logical reason to change the name from Port Elizabeth to begin with - and it might've helped some more if the name they chose to replace it made some kind of sense to the people living here.
Instead, what they vomited up was Gqberha. It's a stupid choice of name for several different reasons, one of which is pronunciation. How does one pronounce it without hacking and splutting out ones tonsils? Gqberha is a Xhosa name apparently, but I fail to see the point of discarding a 200+ year old city name which has zero negative political implications or ties to Apartheid, for a name which has zero relevance to the vast majority of the people living here. The Baakens river is still called the Baakens river, and not the Gqberha river, incidentally.
The same principle appears to have applied to one of the oldest surviving military units in the country - Prince Alfred's Guard (PAG), which had a history going as far back as 1866 - and whose heritage and historic character was gratuitously raped and pillaged and discarded for the sake of political gratification, most likely because it happened to date from the British colonial era.
It is gone now, dead and buried, laid waste to, and we can hope the mongrels behind the destruction of South Africa's diverse cultural history and character are satisfied with that, before they turn what's left into a homogenous, mundanity, where everything looks and sounds like it came from the same place, made in the same factory, lifeless, dull and boring - and is not maintained, and stopped working some time ago.
What the hell was wrong with "Port Elizabeth" anyway?
More importantly, why didn't the tit-birds behind this insanity see any need to consult the public? Aren't we living in a democracy? Oh wait, the democracy part only applies to how the ruling party get into power - they can do whatever they like after that, because eish, the people voted them in. Of course, don't think they could ever vote them out again. Governments like that only ever bend to please the lowest common denominator - populists. Which is why they're still haggling over that land expropriation farce that will deliver the final nail in the coffin by killing property ownership in the country and further end interest from whatever foreign investors still think there's money to be made here.
It seems the push to change the name came from the idiot-corner of ignorant EFF racists and thugs with political influence who stupidly insist the city was named after Queen Elizabeth, when its name predates the birth of said queen by one and a half centuries and had fuck-all to do with it. It was named after the late wife of Sir Rufane Donkin, governor, who was buried here. Also not relevant to most people alive today - who's Mr. Donkin to me anyway? However, it's been the name since 1820 - and change for change's sake is not good for anything much - especially for business and footing the bill to change all those place names and signs, which isn't as cheap as politicians like to think it is.
Left to political genii, they'd happily spend a couple million rand on a fucking gigantic flag for the most recent tourist attraction in PE that's still standing - that giant flagpole on the Donkin - yes, named after that same fella. Ironic, no?
Just a few years back, the EFF - motivated by racism, populist ideals and brute destructiveness of course, vandalized the horse memorial in Cape Road by ripping off the old soldier statue that was seen to be tending the horse in at the center of the memorial - not knowing nor caring about what the significance of either were, naturally. It naturally cost rate-payer's money to repair the statue again afterwards - money to which I'm sure the aforementioned EFF supporters generally do not contribute to and couldn't care a damn where it came from. Let the 1% of SA's population that is actually paying tax worry about that for them.
I'm surprised they didn't start a drive to demolish Fort Frederick (1799) while they were at it. I mean, they're already halfway there, with perennial squatters doing as they please to the remaining buildings. Or they could just repurpose it by turning it into more "student accommodation" like half the gutted, decayed former office buildings that haunt the hollow, collapsing center of the city like crumbling ruins and monuments to industry and capitalism.
You would think that naming the Metro, of which Port Elizabeth is a part, "Nelson Mandela Bay Metro" would've been sufficient to placate some people. But no, apparently not. Everything "white" must go!
So without any by-your-leave, and without any democratic process, Port Elizabeth has become Gqberha. At least, on official maps. To the inhabitants, it has remained "PE" or "die Baai", or Ebhayi. It certainly will to me.
Instead, 202 years of proud history which had stuff all to do with Apartheid got tossed out the window to satisfy the egos of some shortsighted lack-witted piss-ants driving the racist policy to strip South African history, society and culture of anything to do with its colonial past - even the inoffensive bits.
If they really had to change the name, why not consult the residents first? Get an idea of whether people were interested or thought it was a good idea? Then, if the people wanted their bothersome name change and all the implied costs this would incur, why not opt for one of the other more known and widely accepted names for PE? Like Ibhayi or Ebhayi? At least that is familiar, memorable, and pronounceable. All of us who live here know the name Ebhayi, and even like it. I'd like to think they'd prefer it to "Gqberha". I know I would. But "Gqberha"? Seriously? It sticks in my throat.
PE already has a suburb called Kabega Park. Wasn't that enough for the racists behind this move? Or did they completely miss that?
Instead, they railroaded this change through - I'm certain - so that the wankers in charge can try to claim "look, we're actually doing something with all your tax-money" - by renaming a city while all its remaining infrastructure crumbles and falls apart.
As far as I'm concerned, this city (or what's left of it) will always be PE. They can never change that. And they can stuff Gqberha right up their tailpipes.
Secondly, there's the matter of Main Street. Since the 1990s, PE has had none.
What sort of city has no fucking Main Street?
The reason for this indignity is, they, the powers that be, whoever the fuck these faceless fuckers are, decided to change it. Instead, it was renamed, again without any by your leave to the people who live here and need to figure out what fucking street they're in, using maps that keep changing labels. No wonder so many people have to use GPSes nowadays.
Even towns have a Main Street. Even ghost towns.
Who the hell Govan Mbeki was and why I, Christina Engela, should give a rat's arse in 2023, is quite beyond me, but apparently he was a communist leader of the ANC back when it was still an exiled terrorist movement fighting Apartheid, and not a self-enriching ruling political party which is currently terrorizing and raping what's left of South Africa.
He has the privilege of having been the father of South Africa's third most useless president - Mbeki junior, who became a laughing stock around the world (and South Africa with him) for advocating the African beetroot as a serious medical treatment for AIDS - in a move which was tantamount to the sort of stupidity inherent to the "Flat Earth" movement, Mbeki rejected the scientific reality that HIV and AIDS are connected and that one is an undeniable consequence and progression of the other.
Other than his incompetence which resulted in the denial of proper medical treatment for HIV sufferers and the unnecessary deaths of countless South Africans on his watch (which still was NEVER addressed by any legal means), Thabo Mbeki had no other claim to fame than that. Mbeki was our last prez who actually sounded coherent, who while smoking his pipe and presenting a quasi-intellectual image, at least wasn't actively described as a "liar" in every other social media comment.
So now PE has Govan Mbeki Boulevard instead of a Main Street. The entire roadway from Russell Road to the other end is clogged up and narrowed due to the complete circle-jerk that was the IPTS bus lane system created for the fuckery that was the 2010 World Cup. This white elephant still occupies the center of the road, clogging it like the arteries of some geriatric who had been on a high cholesterol diet most of his life and is about to croak because all the vital supplies of oxygen and foodstuffs are being choked off into two and one-half lanes instead of three. Incidentally, one of those little bus shelters was actually on fire the other day as I drove past it, making it quite unforgettable.
Speaking of the World Cup fiasco, the Boet Erasmus stadium, which was still perfectly usable and popular with football and rugby clubs and supporters, was arbitrarily deemed unnecessary after the construction of that bloated thing in North End, and demolished over a number of years by looters. With consent of the Council of course, because that's how things are done nowadays. The land still remains fallow to this day - as does the new stadium, which is hardly used at all.
The old center of town, which is the traditional heart of the city, has been completely robbed of its character. Beautiful old buildings - those that remain and haven't been gutted by fires started by squatters or by "students" living in overcrowded rat-traps run by slum-lords - stand empty and have long fallen into decay. Gone are the days where the center of town was a safe, clean place to visit and do sight-seeing and a little shopping. Gone are the days when people actually considered living in a flat in Central - without worrying about the very real likelihood that their neighbors could well be Nigerian drug dealers or pimps - or gangsters. All the big businesses that were once the pride of the center of Town have long ago left for greener pastures, where people don't get murdered in the street, in broad daylight, in full view of the public.
On the plus side, at least PE doesn't have a Main Street full of potholes and covered in litter and piss, shit, blood and vomit stains from end to end. Instead, it has no main street at all.
Then we come to the state of the public buildings, which is simply appalling.
I am now 50 years old, and as a lifelong resident of PE, I can remember how proud Port Elizabethans were of our old buildings, the Campanile, the Railway Station, the City Hall, the Herald Building, the Harbor Masters House, the Transnet Board Building, the Wool Exchange, the Feather Market Hall, the Old Post Office... the list goes on and on.
The list goes on and on and on. Everywhere I look, the place has already fallen into decay. It is here, it is a reality - it's not made up - or something people like to warn about or mention just to criticize. Every other day, I see a report of another old building on fire. Roofs have fallen apart and collapsed. Hallowed antique interiors are rotted and collapsing. Trees and bushes grow on rooftops and in gutters. Whenever I drive on the Settler's Freeway, I notice the missing safety rails - stolen by thieves selling pilfered metals to scrap metal dealers (some of them so brazen as to stand there loosening bolts in daylight in full view of passing traffic!) the worryingly growing gaps between segments of the bridges, the TREES and weeds growing in the gutters and gaping openings left by stolen maintenance covers.
The Main Street Library has been closed for supposed "renovations" since 2009 - that's well over a decade now, and I wonder if it will ever reopen, and if any of the books that were there still exist or in any usable condition? Oh, they're fixing it, they say - well good for them - but WHY was it allowed to deteriorate to such a condition that it had to be refurbished for THIRTEEN YEARS in the first place?!
The St George's Park swimming pool, opened in 1934, has been closed since about 2010 ostensibly due to a water shortage (while other public pools remained open), and has since the COVID fiasco (2020-2022) been stripped of all its fittings and fixtures. It too is likely lost and probably won't ever be reopened again, except at great cost to the ratepayer to replace everything that was stolen because the fucking monkeypality was too fucking schnoep to pay security guards to watch the facilities during the lockdowns.
I have no doubt that if the parasitic fat cats running the shit-show that is the NMB Metro Council didn't meet in the City Hall, it too would be in as much of a shambles as the rest of these buildings are today!
But it doesn't end there - there's a lot more!
Road markings around the city have been so neglected and faded in some areas that they are as good as absent, leaving drivers confused about how they're supposed to navigate lanes, stops, no stopping areas and the like.
Rink Street is one prime example, as well as the one way street on the corner at the Engen Garage at the intersection of Rink and Parliament streets. The intersection is supposed to be a painted island on the side heading towards Cape Road, to allow for traffic turning right to pass through that lane unobstructed. This yellow paint is now so invisible that all the people who got licenses after the mid 2000s (or moved here since the last time these markings were repainted) either don't know they're not supposed to stop there while waiting for the light to change, or don't give a flying toss.
As for the worth of one-way signs, these only appear to apply to those who recognize (or care about) traffic signs. For the rest, they do as they please. Driving in this city is like playing Russian Roulette.
Parliament Street, once touted as a "hub of social life in Port Elizabeth" - even as recently as in 2012, has decayed into a cesspit of a slum and misery. Gone are the lively coffee shops and restaurants that were there until as recently as 2014, replaced by horrid pits frequented by foreign gangsters, pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. Even the night clubs have closed down - which should give you some idea of how bad it really is.
Thanks to the DA - which is intermittently in control of the metro thanks to a tendency for DA mayors to basically act as seat-warmers during brief "coalition" governments before getting booted out for doing their jobs, PE is also starting to rival Bloemfontein for the number of traffic circles per square kilometer. Installed as "traffic calming measures", speed bumps keep popping up everywhere to annoy and irritate road-users who just want to get from A to B without launching themselves over unpainted or unannounced traffic circles or speed bumps, me being one of them.
After an incident in 2015, after my car launched over such an unseen obstacle on the freeway off-ramp in Albany Road, and both my passengers were injured, I sent an email of complaint to my (now previous) ward councilor to complain. He stopped returning my messages and afterwards.
Then we have the issue of traffic cops. The other day I nearly fainted - no shit - when I saw one of those rare mythical creatures actually standing in the middle of Five Ways, directing traffic during load-shedding! I didn't know we still had any! Matter fact, since he wasn't sitting behind the wheel of his patrol car, with the seats as far back as possible to accommodate his belly, I almost didn't recognize him for what he was!
One of this city's main industries used to be tourism. Now tourism is a dead loss - and no, it's not just about COVID, the rot set in long before that - because what's the point of trying to con people from elsewhere to come over here and to spend their time and money if there's fuck-all left worth seeing?
Our beachfront once had blue-flag status - does it still? Last I'd heard it had been so polluted it lost that status. Did it get that back? Who knows? There is nothing unique about our beachfront anymore, nothing to attract parents with young children - why? Because the little kiddies train and station and the big shallow swimming pool, putt-putt course and roadhouse that were there are now all gone, demolished to make way for a boring flea market and skate park.
Happy Valley, once an attraction, has been too dangerous for families and young couples to visit at night because they get attacked, robbed, stabbed and killed. As far as I'm concerned the name could be legitimately changed now to UNhappy Valley instead. Now there's a name change they should've considered. The December Playland on Kings Beach too has become too dangerous to go to anymore for the same reasons, except for those careless or brave enough to risk death for a few not-so-cheap thrills.
These days, PE "tourism" has been distorted to mean inviting sports events to move here instead of staying where they were, for a "change in scenery" - which is why there are now so many unwanted road-closures around the beachfront these days to cater for marathon and cycling events. The only businesses who gain from that is B&B's and hotels - which admittedly have suffered a lot since COVID started. I've got news for you - that's not tourism, folks - that's desperation.
Then there's the matter of who and what governs the Metro. The Council has been a coalition farce for decades now, a mishmash of temporary political allies who regularly throw fits if one feels slighted or cannot get what they want, solely in the pursuit of power or wealth - because the top jobs in the Metro are moneymaker you see, unlike back in the 1990s, when the job description for councilors and mayors was apolitical and the pay modest.
I'm reasonably sure that's why the top job in the Metro is so highly sought after, because it carries the biggest paycheck. Responsibility aside of course, because there's no such thing as accountability in South Africa when it comes to politicians. If a Mayor sinks a city, or drops it a couple of pegs lower on the failure scale, so what? Who do they answer to? God? The people? A judge? No. They get replaced or redeployed, and nothing happens to them. So if a Mayor becomes unpopular for telling poor households to quit whining and chuck bleach into their tap water, and they get replaced, so be it. They're just passing through anyway. Passengers. Parasites.
Transparency is something key to our Constitution and of key importance to democracy, yet it's something we in PE have never had. Not when the NP bunch were in charge, and not now under the new dispensation either. In the old days however, as anyone can tell you, with as little money as was available compared to today, shit worked. Not like today where we have leaders elected into their positions arguing all day about where to place the decimal comma, and nothing getting done, and money going missing left, right and center. We had hoped for more of an active role in deciding the path of our own wards, districts and municipalities, instead, what we got is a bunch of overpaid self-centered twats tap-dancing in front of the class because they don't know what to say and nothing they appear to do seems to make any difference. It's like watching the Beagle Boys rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic at 2x speed.
On several occasions, the Council failed to inform us residents that the tap water we pay for wasn't safe to consume. The previous time, the mayor only addressed the issue after the matter leaked to the media three months after the monkeypality detected high levels of fecal matter in the water supply! The then mayor's response? To wave a weary paw and tell distraught residents to add Jik (bleach) to their drinking water and forget about it. Fat chance! I haven't consumed tap water since and buy bottled water rather than risk my hygiene and health! But then, as South Africans, we're no longer strangers to the notion that we have to buy or pay for the services (which we're already paying for and not getting) separately just to get what we deserve as citizens.
Taking all this into consideration, over the last few years, PE's Council has let residents down in ways I never thought possible. Let's take the water situation. I distinctly remember when I was a secretary for a monthly DA meeting back as far as 2010, that the aluminum smelting plant at Coega just outside PE had offered the use of their water desalination plant to the Metro to help alleviate the water shortage - but it was mentioned that this had been rejected due to "political reasons".
In the meantime, the water shortage has continued and the water levels of our dams exacerbated - and in the meantime, the Council has done precisely nothing about it. The outstanding water pipelines from other nearby dams to our dams have not been completed - and all the successive coalition DA mayors have done is to try to motivate people to use less water and report leaks that never get repaired.
You wouldn't believe how I used to swear at those annoying "public service" Radio Algoa adverts featuring the mayor(s) wagging their little fingers at paying water users, impotently threatening fines and the like, farting against the thunder of human nature. People need water - and people who pay for it are going to use it, whether you like it or not, Mr. Politician - especially if you're powerless to do anything to rectify the situation.
Instead, the Council's solution to the water problem is to wave their little fingers, flip their limp little wrists at us, and make out that it's all our fault for using "too much water".
Then there's the matter of homeless people sleeping on corners, public grass patches, open private verandas, invading empty properties etc. Why are they not being removed to homeless shelters? Why are there unregistered little Christian cult churches and Islamic "centers" operating out of garages and abandoned shops on every second street in Central, without a single one of them offering homeless accommodation of care?
Oh, right - I forgot - they're there to COLLECT money, not to spend it.
Instead, Russell Road and Rink Street now look like a refugee center with homeless encampments all over the place. And what of the huge drifts of piled up trash in the gutters and on the pavements? Take a drive along Rink Street early on a Monday morning and have a look for yourself. Do they have to let it build up an entire week before cleaning it up? Where are all the street cleaners the city used to employ? Aren't their enough of them? Why not hire more?
Next, I have to ask about funding. Even in spite of load-shedding crippling the local and national economies, residents and business property owners still have to pay rates and taxes - the monkeypality is still raking it in.
It is 2023, a time when the country and each metro or municipality has never collected as much taxes from as wide and diverse a taxpayer base as it does now, and yet the country is falling apart, and the city along with it. The reality is that it is barely hanging on by a thread.
In spite of the grossly inflated and disproportionate fees charged for property rates (more than 500% what they were just a few decades ago), vehicle licensing fees (also 500% what they were just 20 years ago) and service charges being guzzled by the greedy Metro - road maintenance is limited to bare essential emergency repairs, city technicians spend their days chasing down water leaks reported 6 months previously, and public buildings have long ago fallen into ruin.
WHERE THE FUCK IS ALL THAT MONEY GOING?!!!!
Because it sure as godsdamn fucking fuck isn't going into our infrastructure!
Is it going on salaries perhaps? To pay for the high falutin' city officials salaries, bonuses and golden handshakes? Paying for trips overseas for the Mayor? Why the hell is the MAYOR of a city in this sort of state gallivanting overseas on the taxpayer's dime? What business does he even have there? If that is the case we're being royally ripped off and their salaries need to be cut back to a manageable realistic level! To be a public servant after all, isn't just "a job", it's at heart meant to be a calling.
If religious ministers can be paid a stipend just to stand there and tell people the lies they want to hear, then so can city officials. Why they need to be politicians and why these posts of ward councilors and mayor need to be tied to political parties really is quite beyond me - what the fucking fuck does politics have to do with running a damn city?! What does a fucking politician know about managing a business enterprise such as a small town - let alone a metropolis?!
Perhaps it's no surprise that this city is in the state it's in, after all. Look at who's in charge. Politicians. Political parties who are forever at each others throats, forever jockeying to get the one-up on their enemies - putting politics first, before the welfare of the people they supposedly serve.
After decades of mismanagement of well, EVERYTHING since 1994, numerous heritage buildings, whose upkeep has either been neglected in order to facilitate demolition so that the properties can be resold and repurposed for profit, or sabotaged through cheap and incorrect substitutions.
Compare the Donkin street terrace houses now to how they looked when properly restored in the 1980s before that soulless Irish profiteer got hold of them? How many beautiful old heritage buildings in the jewel that was once Central were illegally demolished because they had become mere empty shells with bricked up doors and windows?
The matter now isn't decay as it is happening - but decay that has already occurred.
How do they think they could ever hope to catch up?!
It's already too late. Stick a fork in it, it's done.
The people who have been in charge of this city since 1994, and there have been a lot of them, have each played a part in the wanton destruction of this once beautiful and prosperous city, for the sake of greed, selfishness or self enrichment at the cost of the greater good. Either through action or inaction, they've each plunged a dagger into its heart, twisted it, and killed it.
They won't be satisfied until the entire thing will have decayed to the point where people will either have to move away, or the whole lot will have to be demolished to build faceless boring little pint-size townhouses and high rise apartments you couldn't swing a cat in without giving it serious brain damage.
I had hoped to retire here, and to live out my days in my home town, perhaps even in the house I've called home since 1985. I have ten years left to wait and see how things will develop, but I have my doubts that this mess can be pulled back from the brink. Perhaps I will relocate instead, and go live on a small holding somewhere, away from people and their idiocy.
This next picture says it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment