16th May 2013 - Richard Bay

An artists impression of Mzingazi Lake with tourist walkways

Roy and I have just returned from Richards Bay where we invited to supervise the tender process for the proposed new sewer plant at Mzingazi Lake. Perennially, Richards Bay receives all of its drinking water from this lake. Now the plans to build the sewer system in place of the existing 320 odd Japanese drop toilet imports has met with serious opposition. Leading the vociferous objections is high court judge, Graham Downslope, who argued that the project was not given to the lowest bidder, WC drop toilets, and instead awarded to PZ Anywheres, a triple BEE company from Nkandla owned by a consortium of local municipal employees. The judge noted other concerns including the current lack of a sewer system in the area and the resultant pressure being exerted by the existing drop toilets on the surrounding water table. Of particular concern is the accumulative danger of human waste contamination flooding into the Mzingazi Lake, especially over Christmas & other festive occasions such as the biennial reed dance with the accompanying flash floods of excrement cascading into the lake even to the consternation of the resident hippo population.

Downslope trying out one of the old Japanese designs

Ezemvelo Wildlife have joined the fray on behalf of the hippos stating that the lack of sewer infrastucture was having a detrimental effect on tourism in the KZN reserves around RB, & the hippos have intimated that the resultant decline in tourism has affected their intake of Sasko white bread loaves habitually fed to them from the fleet of wildlife viewing vessels perpetually afloat on Lake Mzingazi.

WC Droptoilets have asked the judge, who once found fame for cloning human embryos for research, to  grant an interdict so that the correct tender procedures could be adopted. There was a genuine fear that the money granted could be put to some other use with the Holiday Affairs dept. The money could be more wisely used to fund a long overdue upgrade to Addington Hospital, or better still the re-opening of the long defunct Addington Orphanage that would give the entire population of street children a place to put their heads. However, rumors abound that communications minister, mPule, is hot on the trail of a new indaba at the Durban ICC for the upliftment of black politicians 'looking for partners' & is desperately lobying for funding since all of Telkom, MTN & Vodacom have declined & the Venezuelan government is over budget again.

Chief Fumigator nGlaza

Results presented before Downslope revealed that the side effects of consuming tainted human faeces were disastrous and in some severe cases causes hermaphroditism, not to mention rectal dysfunction. Local gardener, Gaboon Bengali, originally from KL, Malaysia, had thought that his annual crab infestation around his genitalia requiring an extreme exfoliation of his toilet area, was much more pronounced and painful than in previous years, something he definitely thought could be connected to the area's drop toilet problem, or put more succinctly to the lack of first world sewage infrastructure. The infestation was so severe, Gaboon had to check into Addington Hospital for a two day stay of waxing & pesticide dips that most tick infested Nguni are spared. Nevertheless, his outbreak started a crab lice epidemic never before seen in the old colonial city resulting in a fumigation exercise by the municipal fire dept of military proportions. 

Photos of his pubic area had caused many of those present in the courtroom to look away in disbelief and caused the court appointed warden to throw up with such a force that he had to be whisked away to Addington for a collapsed lung that paled into insignificance with the onslaught of crabs he contracted during his first night in the ward.