Economic Freedom Fighters leaders in the City of Tshwane courted an economically disadvantaged community of Hermanstad, north of Pretoria, on Saturday with promises of houses and extensive interventions to fight rampant crime in the area.
“We want to dispel a particular myth that the EFF is for particular people. All of you here are welcomed in the EFF. The EFF is not an anti-white organisation. The EFF doesn’t want to drive white people to the sea. All we are hated for is speaking truth to power,” Tshwane EFF deputy chairman MoAfrika Mabongwana told residents as the party campaigned for the August 3 municipal polls.
“Because you are poor the EFF is going to be your mouthpiece. The EFF is going to be the vanguard of your own struggle. We will continue fighting side by side with you until you get your own houses. If we work together there is light at the end of the tunnel. You will get those houses,” he said.
Mabongwana, accompanied by other EFF regional leaders, said he was invited by community members who had been waiting for RDP houses for years. Some of the community members had RDP houses but were indigent, with letters from the Tshwane municipality in this regard, but were now stuck with huge electricity and water arrears. Electricity had been cut off at some of the houses.
“Once we become government in the municipality of Tshwane, we are saying everyone relying on government grants must not pay electricity, tax, and rates. The government cannot be giving you that R1500 with this hand and take that R1500 with the other hand. You must not pay. You are not going to pay rates and taxes under an EFF municipality,” Mabongwana said to applause from the community.
“The EFF municipality is going to pass by-laws that will avail stands for you. Stands will be availed for poor people. It cannot be correct that we are piled in very small houses while there is vacant land nearby. The municipality just has to go and cut off stands and provide electricity and water and provide for poor people.”
After the meeting, Mabongwana told reporters the meeting with the predominantly white community was new ground for the EFF.
“As you see these people gathered here, they have come to be welcomed by the EFF. This is now a structure of the EFF in this white community, which is unprecedented. We are demonstrating to all parties that it is possible for us to have white people rallying behind us because of the things we are championing. These people have been promised houses since 2005,” he said.
EFF advocate Andries Nkome had consulted community members and written to the Tshwane municipality requesting a meeting over the “neglected community”. The community also faced problems with drug-related crime. Nkome said the EFF would now tackle Tshwane on behalf of the community.
“I need to state that having a house in this country is a basic human right enshrined in the Constitution. We have now written to the municipality and the minister of human settlements demanding a meeting on behalf of these people. Some of these people are already occupying the houses but they are awaiting title deeds to be signed off and they will have the right to occupy the houses.
“The other issue relates to the rates at which the people are being billed for basic services – water and electricity. The majority of people here rely on grants. They ought to be paying less than they are paying now. We have seen somebody here owing R80,000. How can someone earning R1500 be expected to pay off a debt of R80,000? It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible and we are demanding that those debts be scrapped off,” Nkome said.
At the community meeting, residents lined up with hefty bills, appealing for EFF intervention.
“RDP houses are for poor people; then why are they charging us more than R1000 for electricity. We pay too much just to have electricity. RDP houses are for poor people, not for this government to fuck us around. We are tired of the government,” resident Evelyn Buyse told the gathering.
The irritated single mother of six later told reporters she had been paying rental for the RDP house she had been living in for 13 years.
Another resident, Susara Coetzee, said she had been waiting for an RDP house since she applied in 2012. She currently lived with her mother.
“Now my mother is too sick and I look after her. Electricity was switched off at my mother’s house. I now know that our hope is with the EFF. They will help us,” said the mother of three.
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