Anne-apolis

For those of us in South Africa who voted in the municipal and provincial election on Wednesday, service delivery was probably number one on the agenda. In Joburg (as I am sure with many other municipalities) water supply was probably the most critical concern - in my city, it is estimated that nearly 40% of the water supplied by Rand Water, our bulk supplier, is unaccounted for. If we compare this with Singapore, who have reduced their unaccounted water to below 5%, we can have a sense of the magnitude of the problem. The problem in South Africa is symptomatic of almost all of the service delivery problems that we are experiencing: water, sanitation, healthcare, education, power supply, and these are just the salient one. But today I want to look at the problem of road maintenance, as this is a very visible problem, so we have a graphic indication of the level of delivery. Most people's gut response is: "just fill the damn hole!", but the problem is far more insidious, s...