Get your house in order, EFF tells ANC
THE EFF in ethekwini has warned the ANC to get its house in order or it will leave the coalition.
EFF regional chairperson Themba Mvubu was reacting to the ANC’S failure to provide a 26-year-old man living with disabilities with a house.
The Daily News published a story on Friday where the family of wheelchair-bound Asanda Ngcemu from Lamontville said they were still trapped in a dilapidated shack with him despite being neighbours to the government’s RDP flats.
The family said one of the flats was built on the site where they had lived previously and they were asked to move. They were promised that they would be allocated a RDP house in return.
They said when the flats were handed over in 2019 they found out that they had been removed from the housing list and the officials promised to come back to sort out the problem but this did not happen.
Mvubu, who is also the ethekwini Municipality chairperson of Human Settlements and Infrastructure Committee, said he and the party were disturbed by these “silly mistakes” which now came back to haunt the EFF because it is in coalition with the ANC.
He said he failed to understand how the local councillor and the officials left off the list a family staying with a disabled person when allocating houses.
“It pains me as the Human Settlements and Infrastructure chairperson in ethekwini that now I must answer for the mess that happened before I took over. The legislation supports us to prioritise people living with disabilities when rendering any services, but the past officials left this family out. I wish to call on the ANC to fix these problems or we will be forced to reconsider being in a coalition with them,” said Mvubu.
He added that he would demand answers and summon officials to explain why the family was left out.
Mvubu said they had a responsibility to protect the EFF as a brand and would not want to be stained by ANC problems.
“We are not desperate for power and we would rather go back to the opposition benches,” he said.
After dumping the IFP earlier this year, the EFF helped the ANC to govern comfortably in ethekwini. The ANC coalition with smaller parties was shaky and always threatened by the Da-led bloc, but with the EFF on its side the ANC has consolidated its grip on ethekwini. Through EFF support, the ANC managed to ward off several motions of no confidence against mayor Mxolisi Kaunda.
EFF was also expected to save the ANC again this week when a motion of no confidence against speaker Thabani Nyawose was tabled on Thursday.
Mvubu said his party would not support the motion and it did not believe that Nyawose misled the council when he said city manager Musa Mbhele was not facing criminal charges.
He said the EFF would wait for a full police investigation into the matter to reveal if Mbhele would be implicated or not.
ANC provincial spokesperson Mafika Mndebele scoffed at the EFF’S threats, saying instead that Mvubu must take responsibility and follow up and find out what caused the family to be left out of the RDP allocations list instead of blackmailing the ANC.
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