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Last month, commenting on the beach pollution fiasco, Mercury editorialists advised city manager Mike Sutcliffe to advance a more cogent argument than his presently unsubstantiated claims about political conspiracies.
I've been reading the sayings of chairman Mike for some years, and don't think this is a fair challenge, given how his words are systematically distorted. For example, I was e-mailed the City Manager's Newsletter: March 6 2008: Report to Committee: Update on Fish Kill, dated April 1. (This particular newsletter was only sent out on April 5. That's why state acquisition of the latest information technology is so useful - it assures not the end of, but rather the exposure of, old-style bureaucratic procrastination.)
For months, we have waited for a convincing explanation. Because Sutcliffe has not been forthcoming, I'm certain that some prankster wrote this opening sentence under his name: Since the fish kill incident in the Durban harbour during December 2007, the imperative for an integrated response for harbour water quality management plan (sic) to sustainably manage this sensitive marine ecosystem has gained momentum (sic).
No, I didn't quite get that either, and re-reading doesn't help. Unfortunately, though, there is nothing conclusive to report: Our understanding of what contributed to the organic loading, which caused the sag (sic) in the dissolved oxygen in the harbour estuarine water, leading to the fish kill, was due (sic) to a multiplicity of factors, as we have reported previously.
At one point, Sutcliffe comes close to confessing: The monitoring work undertaken by Marine and Estuarine Research showed low dissolved oxygen levels in the affected area, point (sic) to the proximal cause being the discharge of sewage from a burst sewer pipe in the Umhlatuzana River in the vicinity of Queensburgh.
Conclusion This conclusion relied on hearsay (sic) and we then commissioned our own scientists to analyse all data from those systems.
Thank goodness, we learn, mini-tasks (sic) teams have been constituted to investigate specific issues.
For example, Data, trends and expert knowledge generated from this management system will provide a robust basis to serve (sic) as a (sic) early warning system, and to start making (sic) scientific associations between inputs and effects.
Another of the mini-tasks: The ongoing challenges of solid and industrial waste management also needs (sic) to be addressed to avoid the system being unduly stressed. The number (sic) of wastewater treatment works in our municipality serves as a facility to treat organic-based industrial and domestic effluent.
Syntax-challenged sentences like these pepper Sutcliffe's official communications, and simply cannot be his own work. After all, Sutcliffe received his post-graduate education - a doctorate - in the United States, and I am reliably informed it was not from the George W Bush School of Texan Elocution, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
So the problem, I reckon, must be the messengers: all those ghostwriters, editors and half-sober reporters who systematically misquote him. If I'm wrong, and if Sutcliffe means what he says, then all right-thinking people (an unoriginal Sutcliffism, March 8 newsletter) should reassess what comes out of the city manager's mouth, in interview quotes or even his own words. These sayings of chairman Mike often only make an iota of sense if you stand them on their head.
For example, on March 30, The Mercury quoted him on the rates fiasco: The process has gone very well and has been accepted by all political parties.
What Sutcliffe must have attempted to tell the journalist was that eThekwini's public comment period was only a third as long as that of other cities, that many communities were up in arms, and that the council opposition leader was considering suing him to force a rethink.
Likewise, when in February 2007 Sutcliffe promised in his newsletter headline, Ratepayers spared cost of the 2010 stadium and wrote: The latest agreement with the provincial government should allay public fears that there could be a looming rates increase to fund shortfalls, he clearly had in mind a 10% rates hike within weeks, and much higher hikes this year.
When the failure of Durban Transport's contract with Remant Alton was covered in The Mercury, Sutcliffe was quoted as saying: There are no current proposals on the table for a complete 'takeover' of the Durban Transport bus operation.
But every other commentator, including Remant Alton, proposed re-nationalisation.
Once you learn to understand Sutcliffe upside down, it's not hard to catch on.
So when he told the press that he had e-mailed Blue Flag authorities in Denmark to request that local representative Alison Kelly be removed for suggesting improvements on Durban's beaches, Sutcliffe really meant that they should praise Kelly for outstanding performance, which they promptly did.
Failure to reverse Sutcliffe missives can have tragic consequences.
When in February 2006, he denied Abahlali baseMjondolo shackdwellers the right to march, the courts learned the trick a bit late. A judge overturned Sutcliffe's ban, but not before loyal police carried out pellet-shooting and billy-stick bruising of low-income black skins.
Earlier this year, in Wentworth, community activists had shut nightclub crime hot spots owing to gang violence.
As recounted by Desmond D'Sa, whose NGO receives foreign donations, as Sutcliffe reminded us in January (hinting darkly at subversion): We talked to the gang leaders and, over a long time, we got them to agree to peace.
So when an application to sell liquor there was made to Sutcliffe, according to The Mercury, not just D'Sa, but also the SA Police Service opposed the creation of clubs in a residential area on the basis that these venues attracted undesirable elements.
All the role players were confident that, in the light of the unanimous rejection of the reintroduction of nightclubs, it would never happen.
But Sutcliffe overruled the objections, even from his own staff, and granted licences to the nightclubs.
For the sake of all of us in eThekwini, not just Wentworth, municipal underlings and all right-reading people should demand a new council post: city manager spindoctor-before-the-fact.
Alternatively, we must hold all Sutcliffe sayings to the mirror and re-read them backwards. Or use them for loo paper. Just please do not do what he says, for it must be a misquote.
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