Editorial
Johannesburg - Little Khayalethu Magadla went missing on June 12 while he was playing with friends in Eco Park, Dlamini, Soweto, metres from his family home. He fell down an open manhole. For the next 20 days, rescue workers searched sewer lines tirelessly. Last Sunday, they recovered his body in Eldorado Park, 20km from where he had fallen in.
Today his family can bury him. It’s a small consolation – and thanks entirely to the rescue workers who never gave up – but the unpleasant question remains, how could Khaya fall into an open manhole? Where was the cover? The theft was reported to the City of Joburg, but the manhole was never replaced.
It’s an ongoing crisis in this city, with very few suburbs or townships unscathed. Vandals steal the manholes and sell them for cash. Mostly it’s to buy drugs. Why they are stolen is not the point, it’s the fact that there is obviously a market for them.
The simplest solution would be to close down that market, which in all probability is exactly the same businesses that provide a market for the cable thieves that are steadily destroying our city – unscrupulous scrap metal dealers. The other alternative would be to replace metal manhole covers with ones made of concrete or any other material which has no resale value.
Once again it comes down to a failure of basic law enforcement, just like the tragedy that played out in an East London tavern a fortnight ago. Our kids have a tough enough time as it is growing up – especially in the townships with very little opportunities to play safely outdoors in parks. But to die because of an open manhole cover is simply inexcusable.
It takes a village to raise a child. The village failed little Khaya. Someone needs to be held accountable.