When they talk of their government's failure, South Africans in the tangle of shacks and narrow lanes that is Alexandra point to an unfinished modern brick and steel building near the edge of the township. The billboard out front says the Mandela Interpretation Center should have been completed two years ago. Neighbors gossip that corrupt officials stole money for the center. Julian Baskin, director of a government project to redevelop Alexandra, says the real story is that only $525,000 was set aside four years ago for a museum that has since grown to include space for cultural and social activities. Now the project is stalled as bureaucrats try to determine the real costs and how to pay for them. The project is in many ways a metaphor for South Africa: Expectations ballooning beyond budgets, over-optimistic planning and, yes, corruption have combined to slow delivery of the "better life for all" the African National Congress promised during the campaign for South Africa's first all-race election 14 years ago. Impatience with successive ANC governments since has also fed anger against immigrants who have crowded along with South Africans into Alexandra and other poorest of the poor neighborhoods. "We don't have houses, we don't have jobs, we don't have anything," said Cyril Mthembu, a 42-year-old unemployed father of three who has lived in Alexandra for 28 years. "So, we are fighting over the little we have." ...
Anytime
