Minister fixes up woman’s home

AS PART of Women’s Day commemorations, 98-year-old Mbekweni, Paarl, resident Nonini “Mandungwa” Adonis was handed a refurbished house by Human Settlements Minister Nomaindia Mfeketo yesterday.

She had been staying in the dilapidated two-bedroomed home since 2004. Her plight for a better home had been heard by thendeputy president Cyril Ramaphosa during the 2016 local government elections campaign, the department said.

“She lives with her four grandchildren and they only survive on her pension grant. She suffers from severe arthritis that has rendered her wheelchair-bound. Ms Adonis’s plight was highlighted during the local election campaign in 2016. It was then that a decision was taken to renovate her house.”

The handover took place before Ramaphosa delivered a keynote address at the Women’s Day event attended by thousands of people.

Ramaphosa told the gathering that this year marked the centenary of the birth of Mama Albertina Sisulu, one of the greatest leaders this country has known, “a woman who inherited the fighting spirit of Charlotte Maxeke and the institutional legacy of the Bantu Women’s League”.

“We pay tribute to the women who went to prison for burning their passes, who stood trial for treason, who defied unjust laws, who went on strike for a living wage, who joined the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe, who were banished, censored and jailed, who lost their lives to the murderous forces of the apartheid state,” he said.