Pule waga Mabe
Chaos erupted at an election meeting in Seshego, near Pietersburg, last weekend, as pensioners refused to be addressed by their councillors and staged a walkout during the proceedings.
The pensioners had just been told that the new council, which will kick in after the local government elections, will make them pay for basic services like water, which they have been accessing freely and for their arrears. Payment for services is a central fear in the Northern Province ahead of the elections.
In what turned out to be a nightmare for local government councillors in Seshego, a group of more than 100 pensioners gave their councillors a cold shoulder during the African National Congress’s election drive in Masidibu.
Ailing pensioner Samuel Phasa, a resident of squatter camp Zone 2 extension, said the council has already started to remove taps from the streets. He said they were told by their council to pay R58 for the meters and a further R2 500 for water.
A Seshego councillor, who declined to be named, confirmed that pensioners will be expected to pay for the installation of the meters. He said the additional R2 500 is an estimate of how much water they had already used.
The entire process, he said, is being done to improve the area, which he claimed had not been well managed.
Tension began to mount when a pensioner, Koko Sishibe, asked about the houses they had been promised the previous year. “Last year we completed forms for houses and today we are still waiting in vain,” she said.
Sishibe’s sentiments are shared by other pensioners, who have vowed they will not vote, despite alleged threats from ANC councillors that their pensions will not be increased.
Meanwhile, election posters are hidden by the leaves of trees in Ntabalala in Venda, where a lack of water and electricity complicates the lives of the poverty-stricken residents.
On the streets of a village comprised of scattered huts on dry and dusty ground a group of young girls carry buckets of water. They have come from the borehole that brings water to the area sometimes after many days when the windmill has not pumped enough and the borehole is dry. There are a few old and dilapidated shops in the village, and a tuckshop.
Samuel Ratshagane (68), a regular at the shop, works for the tribal authority as a tax collector. The tribal authority occupies one of the few houses with electricity in the area. “There is a water problem in the area. Sometimes we spend a week without water, and we do not have electricity,” says Ratshagane. He says they have written several letters to the Premier, Ngoako Ramathlodi, who promised them their problems would be solved but nothing has been done.
Ratshagane says an induna residing next to the borehole informs the people when there is water. They then travel up to 5km to fetch it. Otherwise, contaminated water is drawn from the river 2km away.
The demarcation process has made Ntaba-lala’s situation even worse. The greater Louis Trichardt council initially accounted for about 10 wards but will now be broadened into 35, and rural municipalities will be incorporated into urban municipalities, presenting villages such as Ntabalala with a bill for basic services like water, assuming it is supplied.
“We will go and vote,” says Ratshagane, “but we can’t pay for services when we do not have them.”
In Namakgale, in the north-east of the Northern Province, political disillusionment is mounting among the unemployed youth, who mostly accuse their local council of failing to fulfil their 1995 promises.
Romeo Costo (26), a university graduate who now operates his own chicken-grilling business in the township, lashed out at the council for “pretending to hear our grievances”. Costo holds the council responsible for youngsters turning to crime. “Our council is not encouraging us in any way. That’s why we will remain marginalised.” He has not made up his mind whether he will vote in the forthcoming elections.
ANC candidate Matome Malatji says his party will launch a needs assessment after the elections and come up with a strategy of subsidising services like water and electricity.