Are we just another failed African state? It is a painful question that requires some seriously honest introspection.
The knee-jerk reaction is to say no. But that is based largely on the natural inclination to want to see ourselves in only the very best light.
I’m not saying that we are, but I do believe that it’s a question we can no longer ignore.
There was a time not so long ago, when we could point a superior finger at neighbouring states, claiming to be one of the few African countries to transition from colonised to independence peacefully and successfully.
We were lucky to escape the trauma of a civil war or a coup. But does that automatically mean that we also escaped the fate of so many other African countries that slowly slid into disrepair and disrepute over the years following independence?
The question automatically reared itself in my head last week when I read the story about the declining quality of our drinking water.
The reason this mattered so much to me, is because I had always prided myself on the fact that South Africa had been one of the few countries where it was still safe to drink water straight out of the tap.
It was something I would often hear visitors from developing and first-world countries comment about with pleasant surprise.
And on my limited travels abroad, I often encountered warnings to not drink the local tap water.
Something about this made me feel a little better about us as a country.
Despite all our challenges, at least we were getting this fundamental human rights issue right.
But according to the latest “Blue Drop, Green Drop, No Drop Water Report”, the country’s drinking water quality has been steadily declining.
Over the past seven years, the infrastructure that ensures we have clean tap water has shown an alarming drop in quality – five percent in 2014 to 46 percent this year.
Rural areas and provinces like the Northern Cape are the worst affected, while metropolitan areas seem to be doing OK, but the bar is a very low one.
In the Western Cape, for example, 50 percent of our drinking water systems are in excellent or good condition, which is better than most, but still barely a pass mark.
How did we allow things to get this bad, and is it fair to cite it as an example of a failed state?
Well, consider the fact that we have roads collapsing all over the country and at a greater rate than I can recall happening before.
Our crime rate remains stubbornly high and crime is spreading to areas that were previously considered safe.
Despite the appointment of a dedicated minister, our electricity supply doesn’t seem any more stable than before his appointment.
And stories of brazen corruption among all levels of civil servants – from national executives to local municipal administrators and ordinary parastatal suppliers – just keep coming.
It seems like everybody with any form of access to public funds, is looking for a way to score big, making the title “civil servant” a laughable irony, because that’s the last thing on their minds.
It is 30 years since we started preparing for our very first democratic election in 1994.
Next year, we will go to the democratic polls for the seventh time, each time hoping that our vote will improve our lives.
Instead, every public service that the government is responsible for appears to have become more and more tainted somehow.
The Post Office, SABC and SAA are all in disarray. Last week’s first Shosholoza Meyl trip from Joburg to Cape Town in two years, had to be rescued by buses, because our rail network was destroyed. And nobody thought about checking first.
So I ask you again, are we just another failed African state? If not, then we certainly are a little too close for comfort.