Francesca Villette and Cobus Coetzee
THE ANC and DA-led city and Western Cape government locked horns over land for housing development during a protest in Cape Town yesterday.
More than 1 000 supporters marched to the offices of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille and Premier Helen Zille to demand among others, better sanitation, housing and land.
ANC provincial chairman Marius Fransman told marchers the city and provincial governments had failed to release land for the development of human settlements.
The ANC did not give Zille,
who received the memorandum, a chance to respond to Fransman’s statement in front of the crowd.
In a statement afterwards, Zille said it was not the province, but the ANC-led national government that failed to release land for development.
ANC provincial provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile and Fransman led the marchers from Keizersgracht to the Civic Centre and back along the same route to the Western Cape Provincial Legislature in Wale Street.
They were joined by members of the ANC Youth League and other alliance partners including the trade federation Cosatu. At the Civic Centre, the ANC refused to hand over its memorandum to a staff member representing De Lille.
At the time, the mayor was in a meeting with a delegation of leaders from informal settlements. Mjongile said De Lille’s failure to appear was a testament to what the DA “thinks about black people”.
Both Fransman and Mjongile claimed that the DA was “a racist government”.
At the legislature building, the crowd first booed Zille when she stood behind Fransman.
Marchers held up pictures and slogans commenting on Zille’s short-lived political alliance to AgangSA leader Mamphela Ramphele.
Some posters read “Zille cannot be trusted, ask Agang” and “Lies, DA lies. Premier Liegbek(liar)”, while others depicted Zille with a Pinocchio nose.