By Mabila Mathebula
The City of Johannesburg is at an historical crossroad. The city shall need a strong and able crew to solicitously prepare for the G20 meeting.
It is also a fact that President Cyril Ramaphosa has become twitchy about hosting the G20 in Johannesburg.
However, his corn pone hokum stuff about the cleanliness of Johannesburg did not fool anyone – we knew it was just empty rhetoric.
During his State of the Nation (Sona) address in 2023, he told the nation about a hypothetical figure whom he called Tintswalo (grace).
Had he visited the decaying Johannesburg before this year’s Sona, he would have instead told the story of Basani (cleanliness).
It is not easy to walk through the filthy streets of Johannesburg without being afflicted with the fangs and talons of criminals.
The president’s recent visit to the city took the wind out of his sails.
Are there any Cambridge Backs in the city to impress our G20 visitors? As we are about to host the G20 in Johannesburg, I imagine the parkland that has been randomly but artfully planted with groves of silver birch, clusters of flowering almond, magnolia and azaleas.
Daffodils smoothing the ground in a display of blatant narcissism that will not shame the Cambridge Backs.
The mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, made an artificial covenant with the president. He said that the city would be clean.
Cleanliness is a personal value, which our leaders aim to transform into a social value. For example, accountability, responsibility and concern for the environment are social values.
This brings me to the role of our mayors. In my view, cleanliness should be part of the mayor’s performance management contract. “What gets measured, gets done.” So goes the management proverb.
Call the roll of challenges in the City of Johannesburg: crime and grime, vandalism and hooliganism, drug abuse, homelessness, poverty, hijacked buildings, illegal immigrants and grey-weathered buildings.
To bring the city back to its former glory, a huge chunk of its shoestring budget would have to be expended on dealing with social issues. It would be important for the city to define a new “city culture” as a matter of urgency.
This culture is defined “as an organisational atmosphere where safety is understood, and accepted, to be the number one priority”.
Behaviour is an observable act – things people do or don’t do. For example, it is an “uncity behaviour” and at-risk behaviour for pedestrians to cross the street when the traffic light is red, whether there an approaching vehicle or not.
Equally, it is an “uncity behaviour” as well as at-risk behaviour for motorist to lack the abundance of caution at pedestrian crossings.
The law enforcement officers must be trained to monitor behaviour such as littering or people relieving themselves in public. Offenders should to be punished.
Municipal workers must also be measured on cleanliness. There must be a new employment contract that forbids the thrashing of streets during industrial action.
President Ramaphosa was born in Soweto and has guided the country through its most challenging times.
Despite the colossal challenges he faced, he continues to support progressive initiatives for the collective good of society.
The only tribute Sowetans can pay him is to rededicate themselves to the service of humanity.
I expect the township of Tshiawelo, where he was born, as well as the neighbouring townships, to blaze the trail in the cleanliness campaign.
Here, we would need our hypothetical figure called Charity. Charity must begin at home! Faith-based organisations, schools and universities must also be part of the crew.
All metros must compete on cleanliness, the way we do with the matric results. That would galvanise these metros into action.
As Napoleon Hill said: “What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.”
We are all cleanliness master builders, once a master builder has laid a foundation on the rock and built a strong edifice, that edifice stands for all time.
Cleanliness is the currency that we can mint for ourselves and then spend without fear of bankruptcy.
It is notable that transforming a personal value such as cleanliness into a social value is a titanic labour.
The mayor of Johannesburg and his team must ensure that every Johannesburg citizen behaves like Booker T Washington.
In his book (published in 1900) entitled Up from slavery, he wrote: “Even to this day I never see bits of paper scattered around a house or in a street that I do not want to pick them up at once.
“I never see filthy yards that I do not want to clean it, a paling off of a fence that I do not want to put it on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I not want to paint or whitewash it … grease on a floor that I do not want to call attention to.”
• Mabila Mathebula has PhD in construction management. He is an author and a life coach (Mobile: 081 031 3619 or 079 370 5447).
