Nicola’s Notes: Pikitup again

We need to pick up the trash from the streets and pick up SA’s image, to entice foreign investment, writes Nicola Mawson.

After 10 days of rubbish piling up in the streets and marchers streaming through town, shedding waste in their wake, the Pikitup strike has finally come to an end.

Thank goodness. Dodging rubbish bins on the way home is not my idea of fun, especially after playing dodgems around the taxis in town.

Nor is my idea of fun to go on the rampage and upend all the bins sitting collectively in the streets as a form of a drunken prank.

Now the potential rat and other infectious pest problem will be alleviated.

For most.

For those who live in the dark city - as Alex is oft called - the piles of rubbish are a perpetual reminder that some sectors of our society still live on the fringes and don’t fall under the government’s strategy when it comes to service delivery.

Those heaps of rubbish do get cleared though, although this usually happens just before an election.

Thanks to Pikitup - we’ve all just had to experience the indignity of living surrounded by piles of rubbish.

While this experience may leave some humbled - just as the water shortage shone a light on those who never have water - it’s lasting legacy is yet to be felt.

Pikitup went on the unprotected strike because they wanted salary increases of between R6 000 and R10 000 to resolve wage disparities. They also demanded the resignation of managing director Amanda Nair, whom they had accused of being embroiled in misconduct, despite a probe having cleared her of any wrongdoing.

The strike only ended after intervention by Gauteng’s Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs because Pikitup would not negotiate with the workers because they were striking illegally, and in defiance of last week's court order.

In addition, it seems there were no demands officially tabled to Pikitup by the Municipal Workers’ Union. Which makes it rather hard to resolve an impasse. It’s like that old adage about what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Something had to give, and give it did. The province has now agreed to sort out a way forward to resolve pay disparities.

But, this is going to cost the city, and could even result in a rates hike, which none of us can afford, given how strained and moth-filled our pockets currently are.

Sadly, though, I fear the real cost will be in the foreign tourists we have turned away because we simply do not present a civilised country to visit.

Trashing Joburg’s streets is akin to anarchy, and comes on the back of umpteen marches and students being shot when they protested.

What a glorious picture we have painted for the rest of the world. But that’s okay - it’s jolly hard to come and spend dollars and euros here anyway, given the visa situation.

Especially at a time when SA is attractive because a dollar will buy 50 percent more than it did a short while ago.

We don’t need to just pick up the trash from the streets - and implement recycling properly while we’re at it - we need to pick up this country’s image, and make it the destination of choice, and the world-class place it can be.

That will be an economic boon and help dig us out of an increasingly depressing situation.

* Nicola Mawson is the online editor of Business Report. Follow her on Twitter @NicolaMawson or Business Report @busrep.

IOL