Ramaphosa addresses aggrieved Alex residents
ALEXANDRA – Ramaphosa reassures residents and does some electioneering.
President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his disgust with the abhorrent squalor and sewage flowing freely down the streets of Alexandra.
Ramaphosa was addressing residents at Alex Stadium after two weeks of protests regarding the lack of service delivery which saw the township being shut down resulting in some employees missing work and schools being closed.
The protesters also marched to the City’s regional offices in Sandton where they had hoped to hand over their memorandum of grievances to mayor Herman Mashaba. This was after they had refused to engage with MMC for Public Safety, Michael Sun who had visited the township to speak about residents’ issues. Mashaba promised to meet #AlexTotalShutDown campaign organisers at a later date.
Ramaphosa urged those reneging on their mandate to serve the people to step aside and be replaced by those willing to serve, “Despite our [party] differences, we should unite and avail ourselves in service to the residents,” he said, calling on Mashaba as a public representative to come and offer solutions for the squalid township.
Councillors and all public representatives, he added, should equally be exemplary and selfless and not misappropriate public resources which were not for self-enrichment. “There is no more time for leaders’ excuses if they are failing in their duties.” On housing, Ramaphosa urged for by-laws to be applied to remove illegal structures in the township but skirted around the thorny issue of the alleged corrupt allocations of houses, instead promising the construction of millions of homes to meet the growing demand nationwide. He attributed Alex’s housing woes partly to a lack of land in the township saying this prompted government in the past to move some of the residents to new houses in other townships such as Diepsloot.
Ramaphosa promised that the Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs was working with municipalities to make them more responsive to people’s service delivery needs.
The president also did some electioneering. “Statistics indicate that more jobs are being created and the economy will boom and our plans will yield more jobs after the elections.” He said the Department of Small Business Development had created more jobs through business incubators initiated to support the township, the rural economy and entrepreneurs.
Ramaphosa urged for improvements in health service delivery and said clinics and hospitals would be boosted with increased staff and equipment to help save more lives. This is in addition to the improvement in the quality of care evident through ARVs provided to HIV sufferers.
He concluded with stern words to men involved in gender-based violence. “Rape and violence including to three year old children must stop. Men must zip up and respect women and children.” Also, he urged employers to apply pay parity saying women most often, bore the bigger burden in family care.
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