The advent of tarred roads in my childhood neighbourhood of Norwood in Mthatha in the early 1980s meant different things to all of us. To our aspirational parents, it signified progress in what was otherwise a rather rural and underdeveloped setting. It also possibly now meant that being banished to the homelands may not be such a calamity after all.
For the children, however, it was a horrible blow because for the entire week that the smelly black tar was being pasted on to our dusty streets it meant we could not play outside until the tar had dried. And even when it had dried and we were allowed back on to the streets, it brought an abrupt end to much-loved games such as “trek” and “hopscotch”, which could only be played on the dusty road surfaces that we’d grown up with.
Tarred roads in those days could only be found in the CBD of Mthatha. Its surrounds were quaint, charming suburbs like Norwood that boasted massive, creaky old houses ensconced in sprawling lawns along dusty or gravel-lined streets. One of the most affluent areas back then was Blakeway Drive. It was one of those plush neighbourhoods with trees so tall that their leafy branches peered lazily over the high walls. When you walked or drove along that quiet street you couldn’t even hear the sounds of children playing, such was the size of the properties. If you managed to hear anything, it was the squeals of laughter as people played in their pools, which cemented their status as the elite of Mthatha.
These were the kind of families whose children attended the independent Vela Pre-primary School, which had been started by their well-to-do parents. After completing their primary schooling there, children were shipped off to prestigious boarding schools in places like Grahamstown, Durban or Cape Town.
That’s how the elite of Mthatha lived. Pampered. The tarred roads that signified progress ensured that their luxury German cars were unaffected by the poor roads to be found in other parts of the former Transkei.
That was some 25 years ago. To drive through Blakeway today is enough to make your stomach turn. The once-beautiful homes are dirty and dilapidated. Some seem as though they’ve not seen a fresh coat of paint in the past two decades. But the worst is the roads. It is a misnomer to call them tarred. There are now gargantuan holes loosely held together by skeletal strips of what remains of the concrete and tar. To drive there is to take a rather precarious gamble on one’s life and car.
We know of the plunder, corruption and the seemingly deliberate and downright political neglect that has led to the decay of this town. But now some streets in Hyde Park in Johannesburg are beginning to resemble Blakeway.
The most affluent suburb in the country’s richest province has potholes so massive they are completely at odds with the prime properties they surround.
When the infrastructure in Mthatha started to fray, when did people start to notice? Did they realise that things were falling apart? Did they shout and demand that authorities pay attention or did they quietly carry on with their pampered lives and ensure that their own circumstances improved by simply swapping their luxury sedans for the bigger 4×4 SUVs that could easily negotiate the gaping holes? Many, I suppose, fled and moved to the big cities and forgot the mess they left behind. They would have benefited unfairly from the kleptocracy of the Mathanzima regime in much the same way as the politically connected tenderpreneurs now do from the state or as white capital did from the apartheid regime.
The poor in South Africa have made their voices heard with a string of service-delivery protests demanding better houses, toilets, roads and other basic amenities. There has been acknowledgement by government of the problems that have hindered delivery and attempts are afoot to address a myriad of these. Often, though, it seems that with our roads the approach is piecemeal and there is a very superficial papering over of the big cracks. This doesn’t work because within a few weeks, or after a few days of rain, the roads are back to their hazardous state or even worse.
There seems to be a reluctance to admit that the rot and decay is deeply set. I’m no engineer and don’t even know what goes into the upkeep of the road infrastructure but it’s clear this patchwork approach isn’t sustainable.
If an overhaul of the road infrastructure is needed, let’s admit it, calculate the financial cost and prepare to take the pain and inconvenience while we fix the roads for good — not just as an exercise to make our country look pretty for the World Cup but for the long-term feasibility of our country and future generations. Otherwise the insidious rot will fester and ultimately it won’t just be the roads that are an eyesore.