Time for voters to hold failing parties to account

POLITICALLY, SOUTH Africa is at a stage where political parties are continuously failing the masses.

As elections draw closer, the ageold door-to-door campaigns will once again be filled with empty promises.

What is most disturbing, though, is that more political parties, such as the ANC, the EFF and the DA, are showing their true colours day in and day out.

A litany of ministers in the ANC have been compromised and are testifying at the State Capture Commission of Inquiry. One of them, Nhlanhla Nene, the former minister of finance, fell on his sword recently after it was revealed that he had visited the Gupta family on a number of occasions.

Malusi Gigaba, the current minister of Home Affairs, is facing political oblivion after a series of allegations relating to state capture were levelled against him.

Floyd Shivambu and Julius Malema, the leaders of the EFF, have been implicated in the VBS Mutual Bank looting scandal, where scores of innocent villagers lost a significant amount of their life savings.

Just last week, the DA saw nine councillors resign in solidarity with former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille.

One of the councillors and former chief whip of the City of Cape Town, Shaun August, said in a recent interview that he had had enough of the double standards and racism in the DA.

Other leaders have outed the party as being run by a cabal of old white males, who are alleged to have been complicit in the over-concentration of resources to affluent, mostly white areas, while the rest of the people live in squalor.

Fast forward to 2018, the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape are still some of the most unequal areas in South Africa, where poverty and crime levels in areas such as Gugulethu, Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha are at an all-time high.

Children are still going to schools with broken shoes, with no lunchboxes, on empty stomachs and with no protection, but in areas such as Seapoint there is an over-concentration of resources where police are protecting the affluent communities.

Political parties need to be held accountable for their actions.

The voters hold the power and those who do not deliver must be voted out, in order to pave the way for economic prosperity that has eluded citizens since the dawn of democracy.