The Mercury of November 25, 2008, reported that the Durban bus service could come to halt next January. The bus operator Remant Alton has apparently not receive national transport subsidies from December to March. The company apparently gets R11.5 million per month and will therefore be R46 million short over the festive season area. Erik Moller, deputy head of the city's transport authority, admitted that it was a big problem said he believed that the best solution would be if the money came from the National Treasury or that the province could come to the assistance of the company. The current municipal subsidy of R10 million was apparently still be paid to Remant Alton by the municipality.
In other news, it appears that contestants from the Miss world 2008 competition will be in town for a couple of days, starting on Wednesday, November 26, 2008. 112 contestants will apparently be in the city for photo shoots on the beach and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, before proceeding to Johannesburg for the competition. Hope they don't get ill swimming at our non-Blue Flag beaches!
The paper reported that Enden Refinery should be back in operation by mid-January after a disastrous fire shut down the installation two weeks ago. The fire was apparently caused by mechanical failure on a pump.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Another blue-light incident
The Sunday Tribune of November 16, 2008, reported the occurrence of another blue-light incident on the N3 near Pietermaritzburg. A member of the VIP Protection Unit has been arrested for shooting at the tyres of a Mazda car when it didn't move out of the fast lane to allow the VIP convoy past on the N3. Eight people were injured when the diver of a black Mazda lost control and the vehicle veered into the oncoming traffice and crashed into another vehucle
The convoy was apparently on the way to fetch MEC for Social Welfare Meshack Radebe when the incident took place. The policeman has apparently been arrested and charged with 12 counts of attempted murder arising from the incident. I have mentioned blue-light incident before in these pages and this is just another one in a long list where the bodyguards of VIPs and prominent people feel they have the absolute right to push all traffic out of the way from in front of their convoys. They do not appear acknowledge any accountability for their actions and I'm sure that one day, quite soon, we are going to have an even greater tragedy when people are actually killed.
Life in the banana republic goes on...
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The convoy was apparently on the way to fetch MEC for Social Welfare Meshack Radebe when the incident took place. The policeman has apparently been arrested and charged with 12 counts of attempted murder arising from the incident. I have mentioned blue-light incident before in these pages and this is just another one in a long list where the bodyguards of VIPs and prominent people feel they have the absolute right to push all traffic out of the way from in front of their convoys. They do not appear acknowledge any accountability for their actions and I'm sure that one day, quite soon, we are going to have an even greater tragedy when people are actually killed.
Life in the banana republic goes on...
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Freak storm hits Link Hills and Molweni
The Independent Online reported on November 15, 2008, that a freak storm had torn through residential areas in Molweni and Link Hills near Durban, and had damaged hundreds of low-cost houses and killed at least eight people, leaving thousands homeless. An emergency rescue worker reported he'd never seen such devastation in 35 years of providing emergency services.
I went out yesterday morning to have a look at the path damage that the storm cut through the Link Hills area, which is very near my home. I was shocked at the scale of devastation and the evident power of the storm. Sturdy pine trees had been twisted and snapped off halfway up their trunks and the roads were littered with fallen branches and trees. Many residents were trying to clear the wreckage from their properties and many of the houses had missing tiles from their roofs. As I walked through the area, the sound of power saws filled the air as people tried desperately to clear away the wreckage from their properties.
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I went out yesterday morning to have a look at the path damage that the storm cut through the Link Hills area, which is very near my home. I was shocked at the scale of devastation and the evident power of the storm. Sturdy pine trees had been twisted and snapped off halfway up their trunks and the roads were littered with fallen branches and trees. Many residents were trying to clear the wreckage from their properties and many of the houses had missing tiles from their roofs. As I walked through the area, the sound of power saws filled the air as people tried desperately to clear away the wreckage from their properties..
Fire at Engen refinery
The Engen refinery in Durban will be closed for four weeks after a fire, according to the Mercury of Friday , November 14, 2008, which reported that a fire had broken out the day before and is likely to cost the company more than R6-million per day while the repairs, themselves, are expected to cost more than R50-million.
The fire broke out after midnight in the unit which feeds crude oil into the refinery's processing units and was put out by 3:10 a.m. in the morning. This fire is the fourth at the refinery in two years according to general manager Willem Oosthuizen. Last year in November, R120-million was lost when a tank containing petrol 7.5 million litres of petrol was struck by lightning.
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The fire broke out after midnight in the unit which feeds crude oil into the refinery's processing units and was put out by 3:10 a.m. in the morning. This fire is the fourth at the refinery in two years according to general manager Willem Oosthuizen. Last year in November, R120-million was lost when a tank containing petrol 7.5 million litres of petrol was struck by lightning.
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Friday, November 14, 2008
Snippets from the week
The Mercury of Monday, November 10, 2008 reported, amongst other things, that:
The Mercury of Tuesday, November 11, 2008 reported, amongst other things, that:
- The city hall organ, which is unserviceable as reported here, is not going to be fixed. This according to municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe, who said that fixing the organ was not a priority and that it was not something that ratepayers should paying for. The city can't afford a couple of million to fix an organ dating back to 1894 but it can afford billions for an unecessary football stadium??
- A local artist Jenny Cullinan held a Dirty Durban exhibition at the Botanic Gardens consisting of photographs of the filth and litter in Durban. The pictures were apparently all taken after the end of the Durban Solid Waste strike.
The Mercury of Wednesday, November 12, 2008 reported, amongst other things, that:
- That a heist had taken place the previous day in Maphumulo in rural KZN. Sixteen men, armed with assault rifles and pistols, had ambushed a convoy taking money to a pensions pay point, killing two policemen and critically wounding two others. By the sounds of things, the robbers drove up to and opened fire on the police vehicle without warning.
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- There was a growing tide of protest at the decision not to fix the city hall organ.
- Moses Mabhida Stadium visitor's centre manager Florina Maphalala was quoted as saying that the stadium would be like Durban's Table Mountain - a great tourist attraction. She apparently doesn't think she'll be watching the world cup final because it would conflict with her Christian beliefs.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
An angry white man?
Some while ago, our city manager Dr. Michael Sutcliffe was accosted by an irate ratepayer while he and his wife were having Sunday breakfast (I seem to remember) in a restaurant. A letter from Dr Sutcliffe was subsequently published in the local papers in which he slammed the failure of 'angry white men' to accept transformation in society. There wasn't so much as a hint that the 'angry white man' might have had a legimitate grievance and reasons, like the litter and deteriorating infrastructure, for taking the city manager (who is, after all, his employee) to task.
Now it seems, according to the Independent on Saturday of November 8, 2008, that Dr Sutcliffe has himself become an angry white man. He is apparently furious that people are defacing the new streetname signs which he and his cohorts have forced on an unwilling city. He is so angry, in fact, that he is reportedly trying to ensure that anyone caught defacing the signs gets an automatic jail sentence. This for an offense which is currently on a par with putting up posters illegally or spraying graffiti on walls and which would only attract a fine. Sounds to me like vindictiveness brought about by an inability to tolerate being crossed.
The opposition DA party in the council said it didn't condone the destruction of property but pointed out that these sort of things happen when you force things on people who have no legitimate redress. The ANC, of which Dr Sutcliffe is a member, was brought into being to offer resistance to a system in which people were denied the right to decide things for themselves. I wonder if he and the rest of our city management see any parralells at all between their behaviour and that of the previous regime?
Here's a suggestion: I'd be in favour of renaming any street provided it has the approval of the majority of people living or doing business there.
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Now it seems, according to the Independent on Saturday of November 8, 2008, that Dr Sutcliffe has himself become an angry white man. He is apparently furious that people are defacing the new streetname signs which he and his cohorts have forced on an unwilling city. He is so angry, in fact, that he is reportedly trying to ensure that anyone caught defacing the signs gets an automatic jail sentence. This for an offense which is currently on a par with putting up posters illegally or spraying graffiti on walls and which would only attract a fine. Sounds to me like vindictiveness brought about by an inability to tolerate being crossed.
The opposition DA party in the council said it didn't condone the destruction of property but pointed out that these sort of things happen when you force things on people who have no legitimate redress. The ANC, of which Dr Sutcliffe is a member, was brought into being to offer resistance to a system in which people were denied the right to decide things for themselves. I wonder if he and the rest of our city management see any parralells at all between their behaviour and that of the previous regime?
Here's a suggestion: I'd be in favour of renaming any street provided it has the approval of the majority of people living or doing business there.
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Point watersports good news
The Mercury of November 7, 2008, reports that a long-running acrimonious disagreement between the city and various watersports clubs based around Vetch's Pier has been solved. The Durban Point Development Company and the city were very keen to get the clubs to move from their prime beach locations. The developers have apparently now agreed to accommodate the clubs in premises adjacent to the new North Pier in the mooted Point Marina.
This was announced at a function held in a marquee in Timeball Square on Thursday in what was to be the announcement that the Environmental Impact Assessment concerning the building of the Marina had been approved. The approval has not yet been granted and it might take months longer.
I'm not usually in favour of the buraucratic process (particularly slow in our case) but this time I'm wondering if approval would be merited. Building a nice marina just outside the harbour entrance sounds like a hell of a good idea on a nice calm sunny day, but it overlooks the fact that this area was known as extremely dangerous. To prove it, there are literally dozens wrecks of ships within sight of where the new structure is to be built. The wall needed keep out the 1-in-a-100-year and 1-in-a-50-year high tides and storm surges, which we seem to be getting quite frequently of late, would need to be mighty indeed.
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This was announced at a function held in a marquee in Timeball Square on Thursday in what was to be the announcement that the Environmental Impact Assessment concerning the building of the Marina had been approved. The approval has not yet been granted and it might take months longer.
I'm not usually in favour of the buraucratic process (particularly slow in our case) but this time I'm wondering if approval would be merited. Building a nice marina just outside the harbour entrance sounds like a hell of a good idea on a nice calm sunny day, but it overlooks the fact that this area was known as extremely dangerous. To prove it, there are literally dozens wrecks of ships within sight of where the new structure is to be built. The wall needed keep out the 1-in-a-100-year and 1-in-a-50-year high tides and storm surges, which we seem to be getting quite frequently of late, would need to be mighty indeed.
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Blue Flag rears its head again
The Mercury of October 6, 2008, reported that Blue Flag status was awarded to four beaches in KZN excluding Durban, which unfortunately decided to back out of the scheme. The awards were made at a function held at San Lameer on the KZN South Coast on Tuesday. A new fact that that was revealed by local Blue Flag manager Alison Kelly was that Durban-based hospitality groups were so concerned by the city's decision to go it alone that they approached the Blue Flag organisation in an effort to take over responsibility for getting the beaches into shape.. The request was apparently refused because attaining Blue Flag status did not have municipality support.
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Not so racist after all ?
It would seem that 'white' America may not be as racist as might have been believed. Barack Obama was elected president of the USA last week and, if the Mercury of November 6, 2008, has its figures correct, 43% of white voters voted for him. These folk were clearly not voting along racial lines, and I aplaud that, but can the same be said for the 96% of black voters who supported him?
You may wonder what this has to do with a South Africa and, particularly, a Durban-related blog. The trouble is that we are also afflicted by the view that racism can only really exist only among whites [I felt guilty about this for years] but it is a view which is clearly wrong. We cannot become a truly non-racial society until everyone stops acting (or voting) along racial lines.
Anyway, America has a lot to be proud of. The best man won last week's election and it will hopefully inspire others around the world to vote for candidates in their elections on that basis in future.
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You may wonder what this has to do with a South Africa and, particularly, a Durban-related blog. The trouble is that we are also afflicted by the view that racism can only really exist only among whites [I felt guilty about this for years] but it is a view which is clearly wrong. We cannot become a truly non-racial society until everyone stops acting (or voting) along racial lines.
Anyway, America has a lot to be proud of. The best man won last week's election and it will hopefully inspire others around the world to vote for candidates in their elections on that basis in future.
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Monday, November 3, 2008
Diwali & Moses Mabhida
The Hindu celebration Diwali took place in Durban last week on 29 &30 November, 2008. I was in a good vantage point in Moreton Hall (on the Berea near Kensington) and the sight of fireworks going off all around was awe-inspiring. It was hard to photograph them because you couldn't predict where the next one was going be and train the camera, fixed to its tripod, onto the spot. I had a bit of luck and produced the following pic of the new Moses Mabhisa stadium with a small firework:
and this one looking towards Jacob Zuma's house, with Durban in thebackground:
and this one looking towards Jacob Zuma's house, with Durban in thebackground:
Sunday, November 2, 2008
City hall organ
Our city organ is urgently in need of repair according to an interesting mail I received from Wim Mutsaerts. His mail also has a lot of information about the history of the organ and I have posted it onthe Facts About Durban website.
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Saturday, November 1, 2008
Quite a procession
On Friday, October 31, 2008, I was driving down the M19 from Pinetown to Springfield Park and came across an mazing sight. The first sign of anything unusual were members of the city police directing traffic where the road passes under the N2 ring road. They were not wearing their usual summer uniforms, but their Number Ones or stepouts which included heavy jackets, and they were sweating like bullets. A little further down the road towards Makro there appeared a procession, the like of which I've never seen.
There were two huge stretch limousines with the logo of a funeral home on their doors and following them, the biggest collection of expensive black cars that I've ever seen. They filled the three lanes of the road in a queue that could have been 500m or even longer. I have absolutely no idea how many vehicles there were, because I had to pay attention to the road and was unable to count, but there were a hell of lot. There were Mercedes and BMW, and a wide selection of SUVs including Range Rovers, Mercedes and BMWs and, I think, Jeeps, many of them, otherwise unmarked, had flashing blue lights on their dashboards.
I later found that this was the funeral procession of anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Billy Nair, who died in St Augustines Hospital on October 23, and that all the great and the good of the new South Africa were in attendence, including the president of the country and everyone else who is anyone. I don't grudge Nair his sendoff but all I wonder is how a country with as many poor people in it as ours', can afford so many expensive black cars for its officials. As I've said, I don't know how many there were but there were enough to make the scene look awesome and, at possiblyR50000 a pop, the amount of money spent must be awesome too.
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There were two huge stretch limousines with the logo of a funeral home on their doors and following them, the biggest collection of expensive black cars that I've ever seen. They filled the three lanes of the road in a queue that could have been 500m or even longer. I have absolutely no idea how many vehicles there were, because I had to pay attention to the road and was unable to count, but there were a hell of lot. There were Mercedes and BMW, and a wide selection of SUVs including Range Rovers, Mercedes and BMWs and, I think, Jeeps, many of them, otherwise unmarked, had flashing blue lights on their dashboards.
I later found that this was the funeral procession of anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Billy Nair, who died in St Augustines Hospital on October 23, and that all the great and the good of the new South Africa were in attendence, including the president of the country and everyone else who is anyone. I don't grudge Nair his sendoff but all I wonder is how a country with as many poor people in it as ours', can afford so many expensive black cars for its officials. As I've said, I don't know how many there were but there were enough to make the scene look awesome and, at possiblyR50000 a pop, the amount of money spent must be awesome too.
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Harbour congestion
The Mercury, of October 29, 2008, reports on congestion on routes leading to the container terminals and of the long delays experienced by truckers waiting load to and offload cargo. The truckers have apparently been threatening to block the port. The truckers apparently often wait for periods longer than a day with no facilities, including toilets, available to them. Drivers were complaining that they do not get paid for time spent waiting, which should be source of shame to their employers.
The Mercury reported that they had been unable to get comment from Transnet, which runs the harbour and the container terminals. No surprises there, then! It matches up perfectly with my experience of the monolithic Transnet. The story about congestion at the container terminals has been around for years. I wrote about it at least a year ago for the publication I edit and it has been around for much longer than that. There are a couple of efforts underway to try and ease the situation, including the building of the Khangela Bridge to connect Bayhead Road to Sydney Road, but no there is a yet no decision on how to solve the problem.
One plan, which seems to make sense, is to built a container park at Cato Ridge and ferry containers there from the harbour by train. They can be fetched from there by truck which would have the effect of keeping them out of Durban. Another idea, which I described in an earlier post, is to take a leaf out of Dublin's book and built a tunnel from the harbour to the ring road, for trucks to use.
The Mercury reported that they had been unable to get comment from Transnet, which runs the harbour and the container terminals. No surprises there, then! It matches up perfectly with my experience of the monolithic Transnet. The story about congestion at the container terminals has been around for years. I wrote about it at least a year ago for the publication I edit and it has been around for much longer than that. There are a couple of efforts underway to try and ease the situation, including the building of the Khangela Bridge to connect Bayhead Road to Sydney Road, but no there is a yet no decision on how to solve the problem.
One plan, which seems to make sense, is to built a container park at Cato Ridge and ferry containers there from the harbour by train. They can be fetched from there by truck which would have the effect of keeping them out of Durban. Another idea, which I described in an earlier post, is to take a leaf out of Dublin's book and built a tunnel from the harbour to the ring road, for trucks to use.
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