Enjoy the World Cup party South Africa, because the hangover afterwards is going to be a motherfucker

In truth the challenges facing our country are enormous: we have more than two-million low-income houses to build just to get rid of the backlog; we have massive infrastructure projects to complete (with government promising to spend R700-billion between now and 2020).

We have huge inner-city catastrophes to contend with in all our major centres where, in Johannesburg alone, an estimated 30 000 people are living in sub-human conditions in hijacked buildings. We have a local government structure that is failing to deliver services in almost every one of the 283 municipalities around the country.

SHOOT: "If only we could bring the same degree of focus, attention and determination to dealing with these issues as we put into making the 2010 party the success it’s bound to be."

clipped from www.property24.com There’s a sense of euphoria around South Africa in this week that will see the first game in the soccer World Cup being played on Friday evening in front of a packed stadium that has the world’s eyes sharply focused on it. And for the next six weeks or so that carnival atmosphere is likely to dominate our country as, inevitably, we wait for the final match in July between two teams that are equally matched. It’s a bit like that party you decide to have at home: you buy a vast quantity of food and drink, wait for innumerable invited guests to arrive, feed and water them lavishly and then wake up with a hang-over and a ghastly mess. Then you wonder why you did it? I suspect that that’s what we might all ask ourselves sometime towards the end of July when we have to get on with the work that must be done to keep our country running.