Tshego Lepule
Cape Town - A woman didn’t let her DA T-shirt stop her from walking arm in arm with EFF leader Julius Malema on Monday when he visited Site C in Khayelitsha.
Dressed in a blue Democratic Alliance T-shirt, Thabisa Dayimane, 32, excitedly jumped up and down after spotting Malema walking down her road.
“Yhuuu, it’s Juju,” screamed an excited Thabisa.
“Don’t worry about this T-shirt, this is just a nightdress, I’m going to vote for the EFF,” she said.
“The DA gives us nothing but T-shirts and because we can’t afford nightdresses, we sleep in them,” added Thabisa who clung to Malema as he made his way through the dusty streets of Taiwan informal settlement in Site C on Monday.
Accompanied by about 50 supporters, Malema walked around the informal settlement inspecting the communal toilets, portable toilets and rubbish dumping sites.
Malema accused the DA of being worse than the African National Congress, saying black lives didn’t matter to the province’s ruling party as it allowed rubbish to pile up for weeks, posing health risks to residents.
“Every 500 metres you find rubbish and porta portas, residents say the minimum collection time is a month and some days,” he said.
“The rubbish is next to people’s houses, the porta portas are next to a crèche where the children can easily come into contact with things that will make them sick.
“Taiwan started during the era of the ANC and the DA came and still failed to correct it. None of them can say they are better.
“I want to be taken to a white suburb where you will never find rubbish in front of people’s house.
“The black life is cheap according to the DA government, they can ill treat it.
“We are challenging the DA to collect this rubbish, we want to say to them they are worse than the ANC because where I come from it’s an ANC controlled ward and our rubbish is collected.”
On Sunday, Malema addressed a crowd of over 1 000 people in Gugulethu’s sport centre where he vowed to win the Western Cape back from the DA and give land “back to the people.”
Malema also visited the home of Babalo Pholose, 33, who became disabled in 2000 after contracting spinal TB.
Babalo told Malema he becomes trapped in his home when it rains and his wheelchair gets stuck.
“But I can’t stay in the house forever because I need the bathroom which is about 100 metres away. At night the toilets get locked and I have to use a bucket,” says the disabled man.
Babalo says he has been on the waiting list for a house since 2010.
Malema promised his party would assist Babalo in getting a home suitable for a disabled person.
Malema’s comments were dismissed as “nothing but cheap electioneering” by Mayco member for Utility Services councillor Ernerst Sonnenberg.
Sonnenberg said: “The City has the highest level of service delivery to informal settlements in the country, and statistics back this up.
“We acknowledge that great strides need to be made to improve the living conditions of residents in informal settlements; however, Mr Malema knows full well the challenges that go with this, and that substantive improvement cannot be realised overnight.
“Given the above, that Mr Malema would visit this area amounts to pure opportunism, and raises questions around his role in the prevention of basic services to these communities,” Sonnenberg said.
Malema continues his tour of the Cape on Tuesday. - Additional reporting by Zodidi Dano, Cape Argus
Daily Voice