It is ironic that with the G20 summit around the corner, Kempton Park’s central business district (CBD) is suddenly getting a lot of attention as part of the Ekurhuleni Metro’s so-called “CBD Revitalisation Programme” led by Mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza.
The Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Roads and Transport Planning, Andile Mngwevu, paid an oversight visit to the CBD on Friday.
Kempton Park’s CBD did not decay overnight, though. Its current state is the result of years of neglect, poor management, and failure to enforce municipal bylaws and maintain infrastructure.
Residents and business owners have been calling for intervention for a long time, but so far, their concerns have fallen on deaf ears.
Friday’s crackdown on municipal bylaw violators, which led to shop closures, arrests and seizures, is a positive step, in principle, but it has to be part of a sustained strategy across the entire Metro, not just where the cameras are rolling.
So, the Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) would like to know what is being done about the Metro’s other CBDs, such as Germiston, Boksburg, Benoni, Springs and Brakpan, which are decaying at the same rate, but saw no interventions.
It appears that the focus is solely on Kempton Park because of its proximity to the O.R. Tambo International Airport, which makes it visible to international visitors during the G20 summit.
The Freedom Front Plus warns the Metro against prioritising superficial image management to create a good impression over ensuring sustainable service delivery.
The party insists that the Metro see to it that this Revitalisation Programme grows into a lasting and expansive restoration initiative.
It should include, among other things, the consistent enforcement of bylaws across all CBDs in Ekurhuleni, regular repair and maintenance of infrastructure, and visible policing coupled with collaboration to make CBDs safer.
In addition, law-abiding traders and businesses that are already doing their part to keep the economy going should be provided with the support they need.
Residents and business owners deserve cleaner, safer and investment-friendly CBDs every day, not just when the world is watching.
FF+ Manifesto on Safe communities: Implementing strategies to combat crime and improve safety.
Tunez
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Juice Petite
Fun South African Fact: The oldest remains of modern humans were found in South Africa and are well over 160,000 years old.