ANC puts politics before assistance to community

E-mail your letter to The Herald

MY letter of December 16 2011 stated that the Ikamvelihle community of Motherwell had still not received any assistance from the municipality after two months ("Residents still not compensated”). The community of 63 households suffered major losses of electrical appliances due to a faulty transformer surge as a result of an alleged lack of maintenance.

Their electrical appliances such as fridges, microwaves, DVD players and TVs failed due to this surge in power.

In February I put an item regarding this matter to council as a motion of exigency. This requires councillors to vote in favour, before I can discuss the issue.

ANC councillors voted against the motion being discussed. This was recorded in my letter published on March 1 ("Put politics aside to aid community”).

On Friday May 11 I had an item on the agenda of our full council meeting where I addressed council, making a plea for us to assist the Ikamvelihle community in their plight, asking for council to agree to appoint an official to help identify the balance of the documentation required and assist the community in obtaining it. Remember the community cannot afford any further legal costs as spare cash is scarce, they also in some cases are unable to obtain the necessary documentation and quotations required, and some households have, at the most, one breadwinner.

I begged that we stand together and help this community. I was met with angry responses from most ANC councillors, who took exception to my poking my nose into an ANC ward.

Politics takes centre stage and the communities of Nelson Mandela Bay take a back seat once again! Forget the plea I made which is our municipality’s motto, "Working together for ubuntu”.

The DA was outvoted and the community remains without help and without the means to comply with the municipal legal services requirements.

If all this letter achieves is to anger the ANC into action, which results in the Ikamvelihle community being assisted by the municipality, I will be satisfied. The DA, however, will continue to strive for a positive outcome, unless the ANC councillor of Ward 56 would like my assistance in working with the Ikamvelihle community – this I will gladly do.