Cape Town - “You owe us nothing!” This is what DA leader Mmusi Maimane told domestic worker Lekelwa Jack during his election campaign in the impoverished Walmer township in Nelson Mandela Bay on Tuesday morning.
Jack, who is a card-carrying member of the ANC, told Maimane that she would not vote for the ruling party during the local government election because it was only the DA who had delivered services.
Over the weekend the party refurbished the leaking roof of her house in the township.
“We want to bring dignity and it’s our absolute privilege to serve South Africans. You owe us nothing,” said Maimane, looking Jack in the eye.
The roofing was so badly damaged that you could “watch the stars” through the holes in it, said Maimane.
Jack could not contain her excitement. She described the situation as having been very bad in her house.
“I’ve lived here for 43 years, I was born here. The roof has been leaking forever. The ward councillors knew about this problem because we reported it to them but nothing was done,” she said.
Maimame said the country’s cities needed to deliver better services to the people, and that his party was better equipped to address this.
He criticised the township’s continued use of the dehumanising bucket toilet system, saying it was a “disgrace and an apartheid project” that the ANC run metro had failed to address.
Maimane called on the DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip to address the backlog in the bucket eradication within the first five years of his administration if he is voted in.
“We can’t be marching for toilets, electricity and water. They are basic services. The problem with South Africa is not money, it’s not natural disasters, it’s man-made disasters,” he proffered.
The bucket toilet system is used as an electioneering tool by all parties.
In Cape Town, the DA is still grappling with it. And EFF leader Julius Malema has promised people flushing toilets if they vote for his red brigade.
@luyolomkentane
Political Bureau