‘You’ll be worse off without ANC’
ANC is still your home, even if you have issues.
This is what ANC Gauteng chairman Paul Mashatile told Tembisa residents yesterday during a doorto-door campaign by the party ahead of its provincial election manifesto launch at FNB stadium on Saturday.
Mashatile said this after several residents had complained about poor service delivery from the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality and the lack of jobs.
The ANC Gauteng has vowed to fill up the 90 000-seater FNB stadium, something the ANC at national level failed to do at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth in April.
“The ANC didn’t do well in Port Elizabeth and people said the ANC is dead.
“The EFF went on to fill Orlando Stadium but we want to show them that the ANC is alive,” Mashatile said.
He acknowledged the EFF’s growing dominance in Tembisa, saying this made the EFF think the township was its stronghold.
“We want to show them... we want to say to our people the ANC is your home,” Mashatile said.
He said black people would be worse off if they abandoned the ruling party.
“The DA does not have your best interests at heart. Look at how black people are suffering in the Western Cape,” Mashatile said.
Mashatile was accompanied by education MEC Panyaza Lesufi and Ekurhuleni mayor Mondli Gungubele.
They went door to door, asking residents about service delivery issues.
Residents complained that their ward councillors were nowhere to be found when they sought help on the housing crisis in the township.
Some said they did not have title deeds for their homes since 1994 and that the municipality charged them for double stands while they stayed on single stands.
One of the residents protested when Mashatile told ANC campaigners to leave a meeting venue to go campaign saying they too had problems which needed to be solved first.
“Let them listen and solve our problems before we do door to door.
“If we don’t deal with our complaints now and just go out to campaign, by next year our problems will still be not resolved.
“The biggest problem is that we are going to die and leave our children with these problems ,” said the resident.
Ekurhuleni MMC for human settlements Aubrey Nxumalo said the municipality was at an advanced stage of resolving the residents’ problems.
Nxumalo said the municipality would solve the housing issues raised by the end of June.
While the leaders’ reception was generally warm, some residents were however not convinced.
Another resident told Mashatile to forget about their votes if their issues were not resolved’
“It’s high time now, otherwise we are not going to vote,” she said.
“We want to say to our people the ANC is your home