Cape Town - Hundreds of ANC supporters marched to the provincial legislature on Thursday over poor service delivery, school closures, the DA’s perceived racism and dissatisfaction with the way the MyCiTi bus service is being implemented.
The marchers were led by ANC provincial leader and Deputy International Relations Minister, Marius Fransman, who addressed the crowd on the steps outside the legislature.
Fransman said it was unacceptable and “racist” for Premier Helen Zille to say that the Western Cape was the best-run province, while knowing that it had benefited from infrastructure built during apartheid.
He said the province fell under the old Cape Province during apartheid and it benefited from infrastructure development from then. It was therefore wrong for Zille to compare it with places such as the Eastern Cape, which used to be Bantustans.
“Under the DA, they believe in an open society which assumes all is equal. We are not equal. There are still historical imbalances we must correct.”
Tony Ehrenreich, provincial secretary of Cosatu, said: “Everywhere we have liberated our people from apartheid and we must liberate the Western Cape in 2014.”
He said Cape Town mayor Patricia de De Lille wore a mask when she visited informal settlements, yet she expected people to live in those areas.
“Does she want people to wear masks every day of their lives?”
Mandla Mata, deputy chairman of the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) in the Western Cape, said MyCiTi buses were a threat to the taxi industry and the taxi council had not been properly consulted by the city.
Mata said the buses would “kill” the taxi industry which, unlike Metrorail and Golden Arrow buses, was not receiving a government subsidy.
When a representative from the premier’s office was sent to collect a memorandum from the protesters, he was sent back by the crowd who demanded Zille.
Zille’s spokesman Zak Mbhele said Zille was not available to collect the memorandum. “While it is clear that the ANC has good grassroots machinery to mobilise lots of people for marches and demonstrations, it is also the case that they have nothing of substance or truth to say.
“It is all a great spectacle and lots of rhetoric but there is no basis for the accusations they made against the Western Cape government,” he said.
Cape Argus