LETTER: Unemployed could improve urban sidewalks

There is a zone of every SA city and town that is variously broken, abused, littered and grimy. It is the endless strip between roadways and the street boundary of properties — namely urban sidewalks. It contains kerbing, paving, municipal hardware of all kinds, signage, street trees and grass.

Here is an opportunity for hundreds of thousands of the able-bodied unemployed of all ages to work and to change the face of our built surroundings. This project to create mass employment and urban upliftment would require military-style but compassionate and fair management, mainly life-sustaining pay for a fair week’s work.

Just watch warm South Africans rally to provide comforts for these men and women as they work their way through local areas!

I hear howls of objection from municipal unions demanding “good jobs” for their constituencies while the rest can starve. But with determination the many details and practical difficulties can be resolved.

Let’s stop economic and ideological abstraction and get something big and good done in our country. 

Conrad Berge
Johannesburg

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