Viewed topographically, Stjwetla is Alexandra’s forgotten island, a slum within a slum fenced in by the shrubbery of the Jukskei River’s eastern bank on one side and a sort of no-man’s land separating it from the suburb of Marlboro Gardens on the other.
When the river clean-up project is in full swing, the blue uniforms working systematically along Stjwetla’s eastern perimeter are the only signs of uniformity in what is otherwise a perennial dumping site — the result of oblivious residents tossing rubbish all along the river’s winding course.
But it was there, in the middle of a human circle of about 100 pontificating community members, that I got the clear sense of what Don Malamba actually does. The irony is that my lightbulb moment came at the time he was being accused of neglecting his duties.
In order to understand the impact the Community Work Programme (CWP) was having in Alexandra township, I had been following Malamba around for a few days. Through his Society Activation Management and Empowerment Programme (Same), he is responsible for implementing and managing CWP projects in the area.
I had come to Stjwetla to interview some of the programme’s participants on the impact it was having in this densely populated shackland before being ejected by angry residents.
Originally started as a pilot project in Bokfontien in 2008, the CWP has been based in the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs since April 2010. It was created as an employment safety net that provides participants with a minimum level of regular, part-time work, as well as longer-term employment for a handful of co-ordinators and clerks.
By April this year, close to 99 000 people were participating in the programme, being paid out a total of R307-million in 63 sites throughout the country. In Alex, the programme employs 1 700 participants and has been helped with Gauteng provincial government funding as well as a cash injection from the department of trade and industry for the river clean-up project which, on its own, employs 700 people in the township.
CWP’s programmes are supposed to include everything from neighbourhood clean-ups, building food gardens and emergency relief to workshops aimed at reducing gender-based violence. But as Alexandra dictates, it is the rubbish — to a clear and present background hum of local politics — that gets most of the attention here.
‘Formally brief’
Our ejection out of Stjwetla, it emerged, stemmed from the fact that Malamba was apparently yet to “formally brief” Lilian Kekana, the new ANC ward councillor in the area. Until that brief came, one angry, middle-aged man told us, the CWP in Stjwetla only existed in our imaginations.
Clearly that couldn’t be the case. The programme’s clean-up operations had been taking place in and around the area since last year. But the reaction from these community members sheds light on the unwritten components of Malamba’s duties, which seem to include massaging egos, putting out fires and, when required, sidestepping bureaucracy to keep projects on the boil.
The Stjwetla incident appeared to represent duty number three. As an Alexandra insider told me, “if you remove Stjwetla from the equation, all you have are suburbs in ward 109”. In fact, in the 2011 local government elections Kekana’s ward — which includes the neighbouring middle-class suburbs of Wendywood, Gallo Manor and Marlboro South — was a hotly contested two-horse race between the Democratic Alliance and the ANC. And since it was Stjwetla who swung the vote in the ANC’s favour, in the eyes of her constituency, Kekana has to be seen to be in full control of activities, as her voters expect whatever patronage could be leveraged off them. (Kekana declined to comment on questions put to her by the Mail & Guardian about the programme.)
Local councillors are a key component of the CWP. In theory, through the ward governance system, they facilitate the performance of tasks and communication between all the relevant stakeholders, who include ward committees, community development workers, residents, implementing agents and community-based organisations. In Alexandra, though, relations between councillors and the implementing agents like Malamba were strained from the get go because of the programme’s rushed implementation and subsequent councillor absenteeism from meetings, according to one recent ANC regional report.
Despite the teething problems and political landmines, the reality for Malamba — always dapper in crisp shirts, sharp shoes and a black fedora — is that he ends up being the first port of call for many in Alex, from those seeking emergency relief to people complaining about leaking water pipes. Sometimes he uses his clout to phone the exact man for the job. On other occasions, he bides his time hoping the people’s initiative will kick in.
Rescue
In a way, it’s a role he was prepped for by his childhood. His own circumstances as a youngster mirror the daily experience of Alexandra residents.
Growing up in Mamelodi in a household of 23, Malamba came of age brewing the family’s grog, a lucrative hustle that would later spark his sharp dressing habits. As a student in the late 70s, he was involved in Black Consciousness movements, which, he says, rescued him from a path of violent crime.
After studying for a BCom degree at Unisa, Malamba worked for various mining houses before starting Same in Atteridgeville with his current wife Langi as a vehicle for social work and development activism.
“We had a confluence of thoughts about things we wanted to see change and we wanted a problem that would help us to do that instead of being a part of the people who are whinging and pointing fingers from the sidelines.”
His programme — which has been involved in anti-xenophobia and gender-based violence mitigation initiatives across several provinces — became a vehicle for the couple to invest time and resources into the children they adopted and by extension, the communities the children came from.
But after a few days of following Malamba around Alexandra’s narrow backstreets, I had witnessed a lot of clean-up programmes and little else, suggesting that the 70/30 split between “preventative measures and reactionary components” that the CWP was supposed to be up to was in fact reversed.
Given the scale of illegal dumping in Alexandra which outweighs the educational initiatives to stop it — it’s going to take a while for the CWP to do much more than that and actually free up enough CWP participants to do other “meaningful work” that’s desperately needed. For now those blue uniforms and the “stigma of cleaning” rubbish that comes with them will be CWP’s most visible presence.
Kwanele Sosibo is the Eugene Saldanha fellow in social justice and inequality reporting, supported by CAF Southern Africa