Makhanda: The collapse of an iconic South African city

By Steve Kretzmann

It was six days into the 51st annual National Arts Festival (NAF) in July this year, and yet there were no lights to welcome visitors entering the small city of Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) after sunset.

Only the occasional shop front cast patches of light along High Street between Rhodes University’s Drostdy Arch and the landmark Anglican Cathedral. It was not a temporary power outage, but a situation that would persist for the rest of the 11-day festival. Municipal reports indicate this was mostly due to cable theft.

Historically, the main thoroughfares would be filled with buskers, traders, and festival-goers, but the dark streets were now almost deserted. A decade ago the festival attracted 225,000 people to watch more than 600 theatre shows. It’s now a fraction of that. (The municipality’s population is about 100,000.)

Usually the Makana Local Municipality makes an effort to temporarily patch up its failures over the