COPE leads ANC Follows

Last week Thursday COPE in Matjhabeng had a silent protest on the isle of Stateway (Welkom), where members demonstrated the dissatisfaction with the way the municipality is run. Some of COPE placards read; “No service delivery just empty promises; Matjhabeng is not just Welkom; Stop wasting TAX money”.

Today we witness the hypocrisy of the ruling party on the same Stateway, the same TREE where COPE members gathered last week. Their placards are some sort of a Hip-Hop come back to what COPE was saying. It is so unfortunate that they think this is a Hip-Hop battle, last week COPE said, “ No Service delivery just empty promises”, today the ANC says,” ANC makes no idle promises”. COPE highlighted issues around service delivery in the Municipality, issues such as the street lights that aren’t working, today ANC says, ”Hands off our Municipality”. This is proof that the ruling party has no conscious and does not care about the people.

They then also said,” Protect our gains of freedom”, where are those gains? It is no secret that Matjhabeng has not had a clean audit in the past five (5) years and there is an increase in unemployment in the area particular amongst the youth, we cannot sweep under the carpet the stinking sewages and flooding water on the streets of this community.  

Most of the placards were directly from ANC Lejweleputswa, this comes as no surprise as the district is headed by the Premiers biggest Fan, Mr. Speelman (Mayor of Lejweleputswa and ANC District Chair) who publicly said he would not assist anyone who does not belong or support the ANC.

The ANC thinks it is above the law as they have not followed proper procedures to have the march. They only submitted their notice yesterday (25 November 2015) and did not even have a section 4 meeting.   

If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito.

#MatjhabengWakeUp

 

 

  

#MatjhabengWakeUp

 

Under the theme #MatjhabengWakeUp, Congress of the people painted Stateway (Welkom) yellow on a silent protest which took place on the 19^th of November 2015. The protest was only for 2hours, where members stood silently on the isle of Stateway with their placards facing traffic. The placards highlighted dissatisfaction with the way the municipality is run as well as the lack of service delivery in the area.

 

"Matjhabeng is not

just Welkom; We demand

quality health care"

Some of the placards read, “Matjhabeng is not just Welkom; We demand quality health care; Stop wasting tax money.” Others highlighted the issues of street light that aren’t working all over Matjhabeng, especially in Virginia where the CBC is really dark at night; this makes the community vulnerable to crime.

 Free State has been declared a drought disaster area and people have been told of ways to save water, however it seems like the municipality does not know the importance of saving water for there are areas with so many leaking pipes and meters where residence have informed the municipality but nothing has been done about it.

Matjhabeng municipality has about 37% unemployment rate, 49.7% of the youth is unemployed. This cannot be fixed if jobs are still distributed according to membership cards of certain political parties. It is unfair for the people to be given leaders that are deployed by the ruling party, leaders that do not even qualify for positions, this is one of the reasons why the ruling party is failing the people and is not meeting their promises.  

As The Congress of the people we are saying; “The people of Matjhabeng deserve a better government, which will put them first. A government that understands the importance of Freedom in the municipality. Matjhabeng belongs to all who live in it and Matjhabeng isn’t just Welkom, a government that will not forget about the other towns that also make up Matjhabeng. A government that stands for Equality, that believes in equal opportunities, where jobs are granted according to ones abilities and not there political ties. They deserve a government that also stands for Solidarity; that respects the people and understands that in order to achieve goals, we need to support each other.”

This event is the beginning of many other events and campaigns of The Congress of the people, that will demonstrate that COPE is alive and is ready to Govern.  

Freedom, Equality, Solidarity.

Matjhabeng Today

 

Matjhabeng Municipality is a home to over 500 000 people, it has a rich history of fighting against injustices. The economy is mainly based on the gold mining industry which contributes 58% of the area GDP. The Municipality has about 37% unemployment rate, 49.7 % of that is the rate of unemployed youth.

 

With challenging issues of unemployment that not only affect Matjhabeng but the country in general. We need visionary leaders who can come up with creative ideas on job creation and also attracting investors to the area. Leaders that are willing to put the Municipality and its people first, who have the best intentions for the community.

 

Currently the governing party has failed the people of Matjhabeng by deploying an Executive Mayor from Eastern Cape who has no skills to talk of. The municipality has never received a clean audit since its establishment and has received consecutive disclaimer of opinion audit outcomes with adverse findings for the last five financial years. Matjhabeng is sitting on R 600millon ESKOM and R 1.1 billion Sedibeng debt. With all these challenges you would expect the Municipal leaders to come up with strategies that would redeem the Municipality, instead in May earlier this year we learnt of how this bankrupted Municipality was paying Legal Fees of Free State MEC’s who have contributed to the bankruptcy of Matjhabeng.

 

We cannot sit and do nothing, in 1992 Chris Hani predicted that the liberators of yesteryear will emerge as the elites, who will drive around in Mercedes Benz’s and use resources of this country, to live in places and gather riches. This is exactly what we see and experience in Matjhabeng today.

#MatjhabengWakeUp

Don’t forget to send the lift back down

Women's representation in parliament dropped from 44 percent in the 2009 elections to 40 percent in the 7 May 2014 polls, while that of women in provincial legislatures dropped from 41 to 37 percent. The proportion of women premiers dropped from 55 percent in 2009 to 22 percent in 2014. In the 2011 local elections, women's representation dropped from 40 percent to 38 percent.  

One female premier is not enough and it is an insult to women’s leadership abilities. But again how will we expect others to trust in our leadership abilities if we don’t have faith in ourselves, women are always accused of having the PHD (pull her down syndrome).  There’s a book by Eric Miyeni, “The only Black at a Dinner Party”, a lot of women suffer from this, we’ve seen it in Margaret Thatcher we have also witnessed it in the Western Cape under Helen Zille’s leadership, when women get positions they don’t have confidence and trust in other women to come to the party.

With the local elections coming up next year it would be lovely to see COPE women stand together to challenge the norm.

“When you reach the top, don’t forget to send the lift back down.”

Freedom, Equality and Solidarity  

#MatjhabengWakeUp