After discussing last week why the proactive prevention of crime will continue to be our BIGGEST challenge that we face in this community, I received a distressing midweek call from a concerned stakeholder to say that a Chinese family within a 'secure' Lonehill road enclosure had been attacked by criminal elements. Their dogs were apparently poisoned by the attackers.
And that's it. No further information. Not a peep from our LRA service providers to let us know what happened or what is going on.
This lack of dissemination of essential information in this community is of serious concern to this writer. Almost everybody I meet in South Africa is HIGHLY CRITICAL of the Minister of Security's moratorium on crime statistics as being, they say, something of a perverse indication of our police having lost control and crime being out of control in our country.
So it just leaves me dumbfounded when our very own community leaders and service providers do exactly the same thing and they cannot see the peverse logic of what they do compared to what they criticise government for doing (or not doing).
I repeat, as adults this community can deal with REALITY - and I, for one, will appreciate an INSTANT ALERT (and if not instant, at very least within 6 to 12 hours) when such incident occurs. If only to demonstrate that our service providers are on top of the situation and that they have a clear response strategy in place.
Contrast that with this information. I received a notification from a security forum this morning that a Craighall woman's car had been hijacked. Within minutes a tracker alert was activated and was soon notified of the following arrest in Thembisa: 'The suspect that was shot is Annanias Mathe, one of South Africa's most wanted criminals, who escaped from Pretoria's C-Max prison some two weeks ago.' - now doesn't that almost-instant feedback make one feel good?
At the moment, I have the feeling - whether rightly or wrongly - that in Lonehill this information hasn't been disseminated in the past because those accountable did not want to accept their accountability/responsibility, or just didn't know what to do, or how to respond to our concerns.
Let's face it, if YOU are charged to PROACTIVELY protect a community, and an attack happens in your midst, in your area of accountability... who is not measuring up to their responsibility? No one else but YOU..!
So, as concerned stakeholders, the message that we have to get across to our LRA service providers and leadership (and to ourselves as community stakeholders) is... How Do We MEASURE Up?
Quote: "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." - Yogi Berra
Quote: “You can't control what you can't measure” - Tom DeMarco
Quote: "Define your business goals clearly so that others can see them as you do." - George F. Burns
Quote: "The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs." Vance Havne
Quote: "If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?" Robert Townsend
Each one of the above quotes, in my opinion, point to serious areas of past deficiencies in our Lonehill community initiative management process that I sincerely hope is being addressed by new leadership.
I'd like to see a firm statement of intent from our LRA board as to what every director and service provider sees themselves being ACCOUNTABLE for... and what parameters they will MEASURE themselves against. We have over six years of weekly incident report statistics that should be on record to serve as a base. At least 10 to 20 criteria for measurement should be identifiable in our community.
To help, I have sourced some complementary links, for those interested, to refer to:
1. A Model for Community-Driven Governance - this excellent article explains how and why: 'The board is accountable for ensuring the organization is providing as much benefit as possible to the community, improving the quality of life for those who will be affected by your mission'.
2. The Fable of the Beekeepers and Their Bees - this article highlights the critical difference between Activities, Outputs and Outcomes.
I'd like to hear from our LRA leadership as to what criteria we are going to measure our future community performance against... and who will accept responsibility for delivering on that performance. Without these criteria clearly displayed and measured against for all to see, our community goes nowhere.
The little unattended things that show 'our service providers don't really care':
I'm getting tired of mentioning the same simple little things that go on unattended week after week, so I'm just going to list them here with a date of when they first appeared and leave them as an embarrassing list if they have not been attended to. Please feel free to add to list or comment on when the matter is attended to.
i. Graffiti on electrical box outside Studio Park - since Jan. 2006
ii. Graffiti on electrical junction box - since Jan. 2006
iii. Pothole outside Highbrook - 2nd week Nov. 2006
iv. Eskom holes/diggings left uncovered and unkempt in Leslie Drive - Oct. 2006
I am a little concerned that illegal posters stay up in our area longer than 24 hours after being strung up - some up to a week long. With proactive security guards around, and roving management, surely they shouldn't stay up longer than an hour or two at most?
Regards
Trevor Nel - 705-2790
Lonehill Resident
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