Just 1 000 marchers pitch for ANC’s Tshwane protest
Virginia Keppler
Only about 1 000 out of the 20 000 people the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) claimed would take part joined the party and the former Vat Alles workers in a peaceful march to Tshwane House yesterday, where they delivered a memorandum demanding their jobs back.
The ANCYL leader in the greater Tshwane, Lesego Makhubela, said although the city expected the march to be violent, they were a peaceful organisation and would march without violence, even if they were hurt.
The march was organised after thousands of security guards were left unemployed last year when a contract between the city and contracted security companies came to an end.
Member of the mayoral committee on agriculture and environment Mike Mkhari received the memorandum in the absence of executive mayor Solly Msimanga.
Mkhari said the march was a political ploy to discredit what the Democratic Alliance (DA) is doing.
He said the new expanded public works programme’s (EPWP) framework, in which the selection of beneficiaries for employment was fair, transparent and gave everybody an equal chance to obtain employment, did not look at political affiliation.
“We are not employing anyone on the basis of their political affiliations.
“The new EPWP framework was passed in council,” Mkhari said. “The ANC councillors voted with us on that framework and we are implementing that framework to make sure we get more and more people in Vat Alles.
“Previously, Vat Alles employed less than 6 000, but will now employ 23 000 people in the city to eradicate poverty.”
Makhubela accused the DA administration of trying to “create black-on-black violence in townships” by firing the Vat Alles workers and replacing them with black DA volunteers.