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 19th 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.
