The sham of democracy as experienced in the rural areas of South Africa, as related by one in the countryside.

With democracy almost 20 years old there is still great uncertainty in vast regions  of the rural areas. With the advent of democracy everybody around the country had great expectations  and many were really waiting to be blessed with this novelty. A priority for local citizens would have been making all these areas accessible  for delivery of services and levelling the impassable terrain for easy and proper communication. If one cannot reach rural settlements then the  whole idea of development and governance grinds to a standstill with serious repercussions for the whole community and ultimately for the society as a whole.

 One can cite living examples of what  a sham our democracy is  in so many ways. A Poultry Project at the Qombolo Administrative Area in the district of Tsomo urgently ordered a steel container from LLQ Containers in East London. The company timeously delivered the R29000 container which was to serve as an office and storage at the site of the project; only to be confronted with the reality that there was no thoroughfare for crossing the small Qombolo  stream. They were compelled to offload this valuable structure on the veld about one  kilometre from its destination.  Members of the project had the great task of guarding the container from vandalisation for eight months. This was bought from the government funds. Where is the urgency in such flippant behaviour and  risking of money which was  a government grant?

 In another instance the  municipality is erecting toilet slabs in the same areas. They also cannot reach the locations in  the bundus and they resort to the same “solution” of off-loading these concrete slabs on the same veld. Let us not ignore the fact that these are also expensive items which cannot be delivered to their real site excerpt with the correct  transport (horse and trailer). As a result some are damaged and they lay waste on the veld.

 Some schools have no classrooms; their structures were blown away by strong winds long ago. Teachers conduct their classes in the scorching sun and cold weather in the open. During rainy days there will be  no classes since all pupils will congregate in the only shelter with the teachers. These are  structures that are constructed with ordinary mud and are easily blown away. During examination period, these school kids sit under leaking roofs with drops pattering on their examination pads. God knows how they could work for better results to at least compare with children  in Johannesburg or  Cape Town for example.  An absurd scenario is that of a teacher holding an umbrella while writing on a black board that is standing on bricks; kids also cluster under umbrellas. In some instances  one textbook is used by five children. Textbooks have not been delivered in April. How do such kids get down to proper work in class under such conditions?

 Most of this is a result of bad roads, but officials from the government visit these areas in big 4x4s which easily negotiate the very bad tracks and they are aware of the situations.  They will only advise you to approach the mayor and his or her functionaries who are too arrogant for words. A small wonder that these are supposed to be representatives of the areas and people do not know them.

 That is the type of democracy we have in the rural areas which is the same picture of many decades ago. People in these areas merely hear or see on TV and radio if there is democracy in their country of their birth. People in the urban areas do benefit somewhat from democracy but this does not take into account the heavy taxes that are paid by the rural inhabitants. Everything in the rural scenario is nothing but a sham of reality. When people move into the cities for better options they  are regarded as refugees in the country of their birth. People are expected to smile and help the government that is so useless to them. The facts mentioned  above are but  the tip  of the iceberg. Conditions in hospitals and the other service areas are very  improperly availed to the communities in these areas. This is in spite of the shouts that we are in democracy, while others now will say that the past oppressive regimes were better in  service delivery despite their segregated nature.