Oudtshoorn - The DA beat the ANC to the punch on Tuesday in building a house for a man who has been living under plastic sheeting and who had said he would vote for the party that helped him first.
Hendrik Jansen, 56, had been living in his Rose Valley house made of sticks and sheets of plastic since he was discharged from hospital three weeks ago.
Human Settlements Deputy Minister Zou Kota-Fredericks, the ANC provincial campaign manager and the DA’s Social Development MEC Albert Fritz visited Jansen and promised to help.
The two parties wrapped up by-election campaigns on Tuesday by driving in convoys, playing kwaito music from party-branded vehicles on the dirt roads of Rose Valley in Ward 6 in Oudtshoorn.
Of seven by-elections across the Western Cape on Wednesday, three are in Oudtshoorn and one each in Bitou, George, Overstrand and Berg River municipalities.
In Oudtshoorn, the ANC has to win all three wards to keep control of the municipality after its three councillors resigned to join the DA a few months ago.
The DA needs to win one ward to tip the municipality into its hands.
Kota-Fredericks went door-to-door as part of her department’s housing imbizo, but was accompanied by ANC members all dressed in yellow T-shirts.
Fritz campaigned for the DA on the back of a bakkie and visited voters.
“All two parties promised they would build me a house and I would vote for the party who helped me first,” he said.
Jansen said he lost the spot where his previous home was built.
“When I came back from the hospital other people built their house there and the woman who I bought the building material from said I owed her R200, so she took it back. So I made a house out of this plastic sail,” he said.
Jansen’s house doesn’t have a door.
“So when I leave my house I have to take all my food with. People steal it,” he said.
Fritz said he visited Jansen and promised him the DA would build him a house before the day ended. Kota-Fredericks and Oudtshoorn mayor Gordon April also visited him and promised to help with building material.
Earlier, Kota-Fredericks visited the one-roomed wooden house of Sarah Laverlot, 47, where she and her husband, Phillip, and four children live.
ANC MPL Dorothea Gopie told Laverlot that Kota-Fredericks said the government would get building material to her within the month so she can build an additional room.
The DA was first to help Jansen.
DA candidate Christine Muller delivered sheets of corrugated iron, wood, nails, a window and a door to him.
DA volunteers Elzane Saptou, 25, and Purlton Samson, 23, started building a few hundred metres from his old house on Tuesday night.
They had to stop when it got too dark. There is no electricity in Rose Valley, five houses use one flushing toilet and water taps are communal.
Saptou and Samson said they hoped to get paid by the DA for their work, since they didn’t have work either.
“Work is hard to get here in Oudtshoorn. You have to fight for it,” said Saptou.
Politicians from both sides made promises of new houses, work and bursaries to voters here to win crucial by-elections to determine who controlled the Klein Karoo town.
Kota-Fredericks held a housing imbizo in Bridgton.
The Human Settlements Department handed out yellow T-shirts – the same colour as the ANC T-shirts.
The shirts had a silhouette of Nelson Mandela and the words: “Do it for Mandela.”
Kota-Fredericks ended her address to the imbizo: “I want you to give me the assurance when I come back (to Oudtshoorn) it must still be an ANC municipality.”
The seven polling stations in Oudtshoorn were set to be open from 7am until 9pm, and 11 972 people are registered to vote in the area.
Cape Times