Rhodes University has always been a centre of academic excellence.
It is one of SA’s smallest universities but consistently punches above its weight in terms of the quality and quantity of its postgraduate research.
Its graduates are sought after and its academic departments are exceptional and some are unique.
It has academics such as distinguished professor Tebello Nyokong, who is recognised as one of the world’s most exceptional scientists.
She could work anywhere but has chosen Rhodes. Thanks to her efforts, the university has become a global leader in nanotechnology research.
Rhodes is the small city of Makhanda’s biggest employer and probably the biggest contributor to Makana municipality’s coffers.
So, one would think that the municipality would go out of its way to support the university and ensure it thrives.
Instead, Makana municipality is an utter disaster. It is run so badly it destroys everything good in that region.
People who work there choose to live elsewhere if they can. A hefty daily commute is better than living with sewage running down roads and long water outages.
Many of the councillors and top municipal officials reportedly live elsewhere so they do not have to live with the awful consequences of their own incompetence.
Last week, the municipality again let down the university and most of the city when its water supply crashed for the entire week due to a major pipe burst.
It forced Rhodes University into emergency mode as it tried to host more than 2,000 first-year students for orientation week — without a supply of municipal water.
Registration usually runs smoothly despite the chaotic NSFAS administration.
Rhodes now has to find ways to truck in water to fill the tanks it has installed across campus to deal with the water outages.
It seems obscene that a municipality which should support growth and development instead hinders it at every turn.
President Cyril Ramaphosa promised in his state of the nation address that there would be sweeping changes to local government to address the theft, fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure and utter ineptitude citizens have to navigate daily.
We can only hope the government has the courage to completely redesign local government.
A good start would be to do away with or reduce the size of the mostly useless councils, which do little to contribute to administrative efficiency or oversight.
The overhaul must happen quickly because SA can no longer afford to allow bloated councils and administrations to suck up all the funds and deliver nothing to the ratepayers who effectively pay their salaries.
Daily Dispatch