Dear Mr Vavi,
Is your role
to propagate destruction in South Africa? I don’t think so. As a man whose
voice is meant to represent the millions of people in this country that work
hard to feed their families, I can’t see why you would stand up for a
destructive approach to solving a problem. There’s more at stake in demolishing
the e-toll gantries than saving the further expenses of the 700 000 odd
daily commuters that travel proposed tolled roads! Do you not see this?
South Africa
has a reputation in the world for our smooth transition in 1994; our ability to
avoid a civil war, our stance to embrace each other’s differences and become
one nation. That is a constructive approach. That is what makes us famous. All
of this yet in the past few months we have been exceedingly destructive.
We are always praising the Japanese and the Germans for
their high-tech solutions to everyday things. We tend to say that the system is
great but “we are a developing country and we won’t get such technology anytime
soon”. We have appropriated this advancement, albeit psychologically, for our
northern first world counterparts. Well Mr Vavi, have you noticed that we haven’t
even allowed ourselves to celebrate the availability of one such advancement in
our own country? The gantries that will run the e-toll system will be used for
the reduction of car theft, to make our roads safe from bad drivers and even to
improve on the services of the metro police (for whom we all have an impolite
word to utter). Its progress and hi-tech at that! Something that we can show
off to our European and American visitors with African pride alongside the
Gautrain and our world-class stadiums; we built it ourselves!
Don’t get me
wrong, like every other commuter; I don’t want to pay for the new system. Most can’t
afford it and many others don’t want to be restricted by the speed limits it
will impose. I know that it will start off at a small charge and then escalate
into something that will have me looking for a second income to supplement the
toll depleted first one. I don’t believe that we as citizens should pay for the
tolls. After four years of driving those roads almost daily, I believe that we’ve
already paid in damages to our vehicles during the many years of road upgrades;
shocks worn, windscreens chipped and many an hour lost in unnecessary traffic
caused by these constructions. All I am suggesting is that instead of point
blankly rebuking the system, we should find alternate solutions to funding it.
South Africa
has in the past few month’s experienced a tirade of incidents which call for
good representation, for quick action and sustainable solutions, to give hope
to a people getting frustrated by the systems that keep failing them. We had
the Marikana massacre in which miners lost trust in their employers, in unions
and in government. Could innovative negotiations have saved lives? With the
Limpopo text-book debacle again the trust that learners’ had for the education
system was lost when books were not delivered on-time and many were later found
destroyed and washed up in rivers. Will you tell the people that you represent
that you could not do anything to save the future of their children? In Lenasia
the poor, struggling home owners whom you represent had their homes demolished because
they had built homes on government property. Could you not intervene to save
the lives of these families? And this while our president gets away with
spending millions on a home he will barely spend time in. And now this!
You, Mr Vavi,
represent so many of these people. I am suggesting that you need to lead them
to constructive negotiations with government and private enterprise to take
this country forward. It’s not about the talk-shops and the papers. Let me
stress on the psychological impact that this has on South Africans. Our current
solutions to solving problems have reduced to making the problems bigger: we don’t
like the wages offered and so we destroy the our places of employment and leave
a trail of death behind us, we burn busses and trains when we want better
transport, break down houses when we want improved housing, throw away books
when we want education! The president of this country and the government are
caught up in a battle of policy making and have lost touch, it seems, with the
people. You have not. But you do have their (governments) support and so I urge
you to engage them and to lead your people to improvements.
Constructive
action you say? Well, how about we start to own the roads? I’ll bet you that a
comrades Marathon run on the N1 from JHB to PTA or the other way round can rouse
a lot of interest and also send the e-tollers smiling to the bank! How about engaging
private business for a sustainable solution ? A barometer to indicate how much
of the pay-back is complete and where the monies are going. I personally would
like to see that any funds derived from the e-tolling system or any other
system is used up in the correct manner. How about you help us to become proudly
South African and active citizens?
Am I asking too much?
Regards,
Concerned Citizen
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