A VIEW OF THE WEEK: Are they really on site investigating?
· Citizen
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
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All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.
The popular nursery rhyme that has been sung for centuries has always had a political undertone, but the theory becomes even more enticing when you learn the original ending actually read: “Four-score men and four-score more. Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.”
Away from those 1797 origins, the song could be a metaphor for the world order, peace, and even your neighbourhood in 2026. It has collapsed, and no one can put it back.
Iran and the US, and its ally Israel, are sending drones at each other like a padel ball in a northern-suburbs neighbourhood court. Whether you believe the claims that the US has used to justify its bombings or the Iranian counter-action, it has affected the whole Middle Eastern area and will ripple to every part of the globe.
This spreading tsunami will be felt in energy and fuel prices, in casualties, and in trade, which may eventually lead to economic stagnation or recession, further job losses and weaker markets. It is also felt politically. Already, America is angry that the UK did not just roll over and give them their lunch – I mean, airbases to use – and Spain’s refusal to the request creates its own diplomatic crisis.
In South Africa, we may be geographically safe, but the ANC’s historic ties to the Iranian regime, which they have doubled down on this week, our case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and the current tension between the US and South African officials mean we are never far from mind.
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Is anyone really there?
It is this same ANC that has also led, at a more local level, to service delivery falling off the wall.
And if they had been running DumptyVille Municipality at the time of Humpty’s fall, their appointed comrades may not have sent anyone to the wall.
But they certainly would have launched an “investigation” into the matter.
I experienced this first-hand this last weekend when the power went out in our area. The usual dance followed:
Log a call …
Silence …
“We are aware and will dispatch technicians” …
Silence again for several hours …
“Technicians are now on site identifying the fault” …
Except the technicians actually weren’t.
A community member went past the substation, and it was locked. No one was in sight, and a security guard confirmed City Power had not even driven past.
The utility later admitted as much when an update said they were working on a problem in a richer suburb before swinging by our substation.
It suddenly became less about the outage for a minute and more about being lied to. The power had fallen from the wall, and the promised four-score men were MIA.
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A city in free-fall
Four-score city officials were also MIA when a warehouse was being built in Ormonde, Johannesburg, which collapsed this week. The collapse killed at least nine people and left others injured.
The mayor, Dada Morero, admitted the City had dropped the ball and “should have probably picked up that these people are building where they should not build”.
The building had fallen, and now a reactionary government was rushing to find the owner and those responsible for clear breaches of municipal laws.
The warehouse is far from the only structure built illegally in the city. With policing and enforcement crippled by staff shortages, budget cuts, and corruption, Johannesburg is a modern-day Wild West where land grabs are common, and accountability is rare.
This is not the first time the mayor has admitted that employees of the City are failing. He said just two months ago that the city centre is filthy because “officials have dropped the ball”. “I said this in December, but we are not folding. The inner city is a priority,” he vowed at the time.
Morero has an uphill battle if he hopes to remain mayor after this year’s local government elections, and, sadly, his clearest competitor from within the ANC for the position, Loyiso Masuku, seems just as lost and clueless. At a briefing on the site of the building collapse this week, she looked uninterested and lost.
All of it points to the ANC being the one to fall from the wall of governance after the polls, and no one will be there to make it what it was before.
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