Cape Town - A fringe group calling itself “G@tvol Capetonian” has been causing controversy with its calls for the Western Cape to be declared an independent state, and for people not born in the province to move “back home”.
Growing criticism against the group is largely based on its comments about claims that black people were putting pressure on service delivery to coloured people in the province.
Fadiel Adams, of G@tvol Capetonian, said the group’s calls were genuine as little development was visible in coloured communities post-democracy as resources were being shifted in preference of black people.
“The poor black people are a strain on the infrastructure. Our trains are a problem because they were not designed to deal with this amount of people. We have people sitting at day clinics from early in the morning and leaving at 4 pm without tablets because the queues are too long,” said Adams
“We said we want all the people not born in Western Cape pre-1994 to sell their assets and go home. We are sitting with an issue in the Cape Flats where our community, so-called "coloured people" is becoming poorer as the result of the influx from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape, with people coming and taking,” said Adams, who was being interviewed on eNCA.
“The government is at fault for the implementation of national demographics against the Constitutional Court order that negatively impacts our community. We have good kids sitting with worthless matric diplomas not getting work because the state does not want them and the economy does not want them,” he said.
Adams believes that coloured people are being driven deeper into poverty largely by the ANC government, despite the fact the Western Cape government is being run by the DA.
The group has been largely criticised for taking genuine service delivery issues and spinning them into “race-baiting”.
“Racism is practised against us daily. You are too brown for a job or a house. We have 60-year-old grandmothers sitting on a housing list since 1980, and 25-year-old black boys from the Eastern Cape getting housing. We swapped a white oppressor for a black one,” he said.
Adams said he agreed with Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s controversial comments where she labelled pupils from the Eastern Cape who came to the Western Cape in search of schools as “education refugees”.
“I agree with Helen Zille, it is hurting our economy and our children. We have demographics in all provinces, the government insists about it, then employ it,” he said.
Adams believes the solution to the issue of lack of services is for the Western Cape to be declared an independent state, which he is confident would work successfully.
“We want an independent Western Cape, we feel that it can work. We have been made to feel apart from the rest of this country anyway. So, we might as well pack up, close our borders and have our own country. We can show South African how the democracy project is supposed to work. If we had R200 billion we could uplift the standards of people in the province. There won't be hungry person ever again,” said Adams.