The deadly typhoid outbreak in the Mpumalanga town of Delmas is the result of the African National Congress’s failure to heed warnings the area was facing a major public health risk, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon.
”Unfortunately, one of the main factors [that caused the outbreak] is government neglect,” he said in his weekly newsletter, published on his party’s SA Today website on Friday.
Among those Leon accused of not paying heed to the plight of residents in the Delmas area — where, according to official figures, four have died and hundreds more been made ill — are President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
”[They] had plenty to say about Hurricane Katrina in the United States, but have not set foot in Delmas during the outbreak.
”President Mbeki, in fact, chose to go to New York to deliver a lecture to the United Nations General Assembly on how the world body had failed in its promises to the poor billions across the globe.
”He could do worse than to go to Delmas to see how his own government has failed its own people in its own backyard,” Leon said.
Although the government claims only four people have died, ”the Treatment Action Campaign puts the death toll as high as 49, and local residents say the number is even higher”.
Like many communities and towns across South Africa, Delmas is beginning to confront the reality that the government has failed to address the most pressing problems and concerns facing ordinary people.
The town has experienced a typhoid outbreak once before — in 1993, on the eve of South Africa’s first democratic elections.
At the time, the ANC had argued the very rapid spread of the disease among shack dwellers was a clear indication of the appalling conditions under which they lived.
”This is the legacy of 45 years of National Party rule … Now is the time for a new government that has the will and the support of the majority to address the imbalances created by the apartheid system,” Leon quoted the ANC as saying at the time.
The ANC had promised to remedy the situation, but 11 years later ”those promises lie in tatters”, he said.
The people of Delmas deserve answers.
”They deserve to know why, as far back as 2001, the ANC rejected the suggestion of the DA … that the council spend its available budget on connecting the whole town to Rand Water, rather than continuing to rely on unsafe groundwater.”
They also deserve to know why the national and local government ignored warnings earlier this year by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the South African Municipal Workers’ Union, among others.
These were that water and waste management in South Africa had ”deteriorated to a point where public health was at risk”.
”What is happening in Delmas is also happening in ANC-controlled municipalities across the country, where badly run councils are failing to deliver the better life they promised, and where the people are responding with vehement and sometimes violent protests against politicians who are too lazy to listen and too greedy to care,” Leon said.
After more than 11 years in power, the ANC can no longer blame the legacy of apartheid, as it did in 1993.
”It can only blame itself,” he said.
On Wednesday this week, Leon visited Delmas, where stones were thrown at his vehicle by residents angry over the lack of service delivery. — Sapa