It's probably the optimist in me that chooses to look forwards rather than backwards and this is particularly true when we reach the end of a decade.
Next year is 2010 when Africa, for the first time in history, will host FIFA's World Cup and, if predictions can be believed, more than 400,000 foreign tourists will flood into this land to enjoy African hospitality, Africa's winter climate and Africa's wonderful scenery.
As things stand, our airports are gearing up for the event. Roads and transportation infrastructure projects all appear to be on track and the competing teams know in which regions they will be based for 42 days of the world's best soccer.
However, let us not all be duped into thinking that 2010 is only about the World Cup. It's one big event happening next year and, in the greater scheme of things, will probably represent exactly what it is: 42 days of one of the world's sporting spectacles.
So let's turn our eyes to some of the more real, more meaningful and more essential aspects of the coming year. And, while we're about it, let's look at some of the immediate priorities that, in my opinion anyway, must be addressed with vigour.
1. Ban the banking buffoons
Banks must start lending their money again. For too long now the purse-strings have neatly been fastened around the stash of loot that banks have at their disposal. Reckless lending of the past has now resulted in an equally reckless refusal to lend money to those qualified borrowers who have the means to repay the loans they've applied for. As soon as banks start lending money, houses can once again start being sold and the whole property market steps back into positive growth.
2. Private sector must now be counted
Government infrastructure spending has been the mainstay of growth in the construction sector over the past few years. There are still a number of major projects that must be completed. However, government infrastructure spending must now be matched by private sector investment in new residential and non-residential projects to create jobs and improve living conditions around the country. Private sector institutions must now commit themselves to South Africa's future growth.
3. Tokyo and human settlements
Recent history shows that the former Department of Housing wasted billions and billions of rands putting up sub-standard houses, built by crooked contractors who enriched themselves at the taxpayers' expense. This thievery must come to an end. More importantly, transgressors must be prosecuted and, once convicted, put to work on building houses with their own two hands.
4. Architects and Africa's little boxes
I hate the cliché about "thinking out of the box", but as much as I hate it, I surely wish that our architects would start doing just that. Architectural students study the fundamentals of good design and churn out even more Tuscan boxes for us to live inside. Even some of the low-income housing developments have now taken on the Tuscan flavour.
And, while you're about it architects, please start designing environmentally friendly homes as well. Look for some solutions instead of appeasing the population by doing what you're doing now. Enterprise is what we need. Clever designs, new materials, inventive solutions.
5. Invest in our farmers – they feed us
If land resettlement claims are legitimate and communities deserve to be resettled on ancestral land then let's do so in such a way that we keep the rural communities alive and thriving. So many of the farms recently reallocated under the Land Claims processes have failed and we must bring an end to this. The farming community is an absolutely essential service for all our people and we must ensure that each and every one of these farmers is able to do what they do best: Farm the land.
6. Privatise all our municipalities
Only three of the 283 municipalities in South Africa were given unqualified audit reports by the Auditor-General last year. We all know that most of the municipalities in South Africa are failing the people that they serve and yet these authorities are responsible for spending (and collecting) hundreds of billions of rands each year. If the municipalities are incapable of doing the job (which clearly they are) of providing services to the communities they serve, then privatise them.
Get rid of self-indulgent, over-fed, incompetent municipal buffoons and create a working mechanism for each and every community instead. This has been done through toll road concession, railway concessions and many other types of other concessions too. So now let's have a concession that allows the private sector to run our municipalities too.
7. Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink
South Africa is a water-scarce region and every single drop we have needs to be used carefully and wisely. And yet, wherever you look, the water infrastructure is being destroyed, damaged and undermined. Groundwater resources are polluted, rivers and entire ecological systems are dying and we in Africa press on regardless.
Government and the private sector must, in the coming years, work relentlessly on resolving the water crisis that is staring South Africa squarely in the face. Our scientists and academics such as Dr Anthony Turton must guide us and the government and private sector must invest in water protection programmes to keep us all alive. With poisoned water we die.
8. Electricity and power to the people
Eskom and government, jointly and severally, are to blame for the electricity shortages that we currently face. Now, major building projects are underway to resolve these shortages and Eskom (government in fact) is spending R350bn on resolving the shortages. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of illegal electricity consumers scattered around South Africa. Electricity theft is so rife that it accounts for the total generating capacity of at least one new power station.
And, organisations such as the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, have vowed to continue to illegally reconnect people who refuse to pay for the electricity they use. So before we build yet another power station, let's stop the illegal consumption of electricity in our own neighbourhoods by blowing the whistle on those people who are stealing the electricity that you and I pay for.
9. Bring an end to unfettered township development
Almost every suburb in South Africa is being sub-divided somewhere. Spacious half-acre plots are being carved up into little squares and four, six or eight townhouses are being erected on what was once a lush garden. Every time this happens, the new townhouses bring with them at least two cars, two bathrooms and two dustbins too.
Yet nothing is done to improve the roads, the sewerage, the rubbish collection or the community facilities. The councils collect the rates paid by the new owners of the new townhouses and the traffic jams then clog all the suburban streets, the shopping centres and the communities. You just have to look at Fourways to see what unfettered township development has produced. We need to stop this uncontrolled expansion or at least plan it in such a way that the suburbs continue to function. For every new ratepayer in the suburbs there should be a corresponding increase in services. And the councils must make that happen.
10. Then, let's have a great New Year
If just some of these suggestions were put in place, then I seriously do believe that South Africa would be back on its road to prosperity and we would all be building a better place for everyone. But let me go back to perhaps the most simple of all appeals:
So two thousand and nine now comes to its end
And we reach a new milestone called two thousand and ten
And in this new decade that's so clean and so fresh,
I would like to add my very own special wish.
No more angry protests, not one single riot
No gunshots to shatter our suburban quiet.
No more abuse of our children, our women or men
So our wounded land heals in two thousand and ten.
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn't pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at paddy@neomail.co.za.
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