Letter from Mount Frere: For three generations, Zukile Majova’s neighbours have voted for the ANC for mahala. For three generations, the local government has failed to provide basic services.
There is no running water in my grandmother’s home, no water in my mother’s house and no water in my newly built home in Mt Frere.
Three generations of ANC voters have had next to zero service delivery from their ANC-run municipality.
Families who can afford it, buy 5,000 litre Jojo tanks to harvest rainwater. In the winter, young men who work in Johannesburg buy water for their elderly parents at a cost of R1,200 per tank.
This is middle-class living in these parts where the rest of the community shares waterholes with livestock.
The last time I was home we had a power cut that went on for 16 hours, no explanation from the ANC-run Umzimvubu Local Municipality and, of course, no apology either.
No one here expects that kind of thing. Poor service delivery is the accepted norm here.
At month end, people sleep outside the Post Office for days waiting to draw their R350 monthly grants – and they dot it every month!
It’s been happening for many years.
I was so impressed the other day when Umngeni Mayor Chris Pappas delivered truckloads of lucerne and animal feed to rural farmers to save their livestock in winter.
That does not happen here. It’s not clear what the municipality actually does for the community here.
In my village, families, often headed by retrenched and retired mineworkers lose their livestock in harsh winter conditions with no help from the government.
We killed a cow in one of our family homesteads last month because we feared it would not survive the winter snow.
Giant potholes on the main street in town have been there for years. Every time I return from Johannesburg, the gaping death traps only get wider and deeper.
There are pipelines under the earth in Lubhacweni village, the nearest residential area outside of Mt Frere town, but there has not been water flowing for over 10 years.
“In a democracy people get the government they deserve” is a political curse that is especially true here and in many parts of the Eastern Cape where people vote overwhelmingly for the ANC despite zero service delivery.
In my village – Toleni Location, which is Ward 21– we voted 90.69% for the ANC, 4.14% EFF and 2.02% for the DA.
I was one of those who voted at Toleni Junior Secondary School and gave you South Africans this embarrassing ANC government.
Accept my apology but also accept the reality that my people are not about to stop voting for the ANC in the memory of Inkosi Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Ah Dalibhunga!
Pictured above: The ANC took its election campaign to the Eastern Cape and was received like conquering heroes
