The article of August 8 headlined “Soshanguve’s heroic protection unit makes streets safer” was such an encouraging and uplifting piece of news to read.

The safety patrollers’ initiative by Jackey Mangwane and his peers is a great example of the saying that “what is wrong in SA (in this case, rampant criminality and the dysfunctional, ineffective SAPS that is failing to curb crime) can be fixed by what is right in SA (in this case, the creativity, decency and enterprising spirit of ordinary people to address challenges in their communities)”.

I firmly believe that the best and only hope for a safer and more prosperous future for SA lies in individuals, families and communities practising more active citizenship, local direct action, and bypassing our increasingly failed and failing national government with innovative alternatives, based on business-civic partnerships.

This has already been a growing trend over the past 10 years where in small towns across the country, we’ve seen civic mobilisation by ratepayer groups and residents associations taking over municipal functions to become self-providing because their local governments were chronically dysfunctional, due to corruption, cronyism and mismanagement.

The fact that the volume and frequency of service delivery protests has been increasing year-on-year for the past two decades, coupled with decreasing voter participation from election to election, paints a clear picture that growing numbers of ordinary South Africans are losing faith in establishment politics and the formal state institutions of governance and service delivery.

Since there is little indication of an end to the tragic reality of our ever-weakening, ineffective and incompetent government, it’s high time that communities take charge of their own affairs and destinies to build self-reliant and resilient formations that promote safe homes and safe streets.

Jabu Ntuli, Cape Town