Things fall apart
WB Yeats in his poem The Second Coming wrote: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.”
The poem is a perfect illustration of what we have all around us. We have had, in the last couple of years, great uncertainty when it came to the water supply in the Enoch Mgijima municipality.
We were promised after the Bonkolo Dam was no longer used as the source of the water for the greater Komani area that the Xonxa Dam project would come on line to augment the water supply. As is the case with many of the projects undertaken by either the district municipality or the local municipality, it sailed into choppy waters. The scheduled switch on of the water from the Xonxa Dam has been pushed back repeatedly and a new date for it to come on line has not yet been set.
But only a reckless betting man would make a wager that this will come to pass when the date is scheduled. In the last few days things have gone from bad to worse as far as the provision of water in the greater Komani area is concerned.
We, the people in the urban and peri-urban area, complain about the intermittent supply of water. Spare a thought for the people who reside in semi rural areas like Ilinge who have become accustomed to patchy water provision for years. The Xonxa Dam project was meant, eventually, to benefit these areas.
On Wednesday, while driving down Victoria Road in Komani from the Van area, I drove past an electricity pole that has snapped in half. Until Thursday morning the pole was still the same and no attempt had been made to fix it. I do not know why what I saw did not shock or alarm me. It is probably an indication of how bad things have become that we all drove past it and were not greatly alarmed.
I cannot recall seeing anything that is functioning well in the biggest town in the district. Driving down busy Cathcart Road, one is no longer shocked to see non-functioning robots at the junction in front of the post office.
On Wednesday, the ANC stepped in and reshuffled the mayoral committee of the Enoch Mgijima Municipality. Will it change anything or is it just a case of fiddling while Rome burns?
Are they changing it so as to look as if they are doing something? Are these the best people they have? Is it a case of, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity” as WB Yeats contended?
I suppose time will tell.