STEVEN LANG
Rhodes University students and Makhanda citizens braved a misty drizzle to express their frustration with the way leaders of the Makana Municipality Council are doing their jobs. Students began gathering on Wdnesday February 26 just after breakfast in front of the Drama Department, and with their numbers at just over 300, they began to march just before 10am. The university had suspended all academic activities so that students could participate in the protest.
As the same time, a similar number of angry citizens, mainly from the township area, set out from Soccer City on Raglan Road. Members of the Ethiopian Episcopal Church were prominent in this group as its Archbishop, Reverend Nkosinathi Ngesi was one of the key organisers of the event.
Instead of holding placards, some of the marchers were carrying umbrellas to offer protection against the miserable weather.
Numbers swelled as the two groups moved along eventually meeting up at the corner of Bathurst and Beaufort Streets, one of the busiest intersections in town. When they got to their destination at Church Square in front of City Hall, there were close to a thousand people singing protest songs and generally making their displeasure known.
The gates to Makana City Hall were locked. Makana Local Municipality had invited Community Work Programme (CWP) workers and ward committee members to a meeting at a time to coincide with the protest.
Addressing participants on the reason for the march, Ngesi said of the state of Makhanda: “It affects me, affects my church people, affects the community and it affects all of us here in Makhanda across political, religious (groupings) and race”.
He said that the water question had been around for more than ten years so it was disingenuous of the municipality to say that citizens should be patient because they only started working on the repairs three months ago. He was referring to a recent media briefing where Mayor Yandiswa Vara took local media to visit construction sites. At these sites in Makhanda East, considerable progress has been made in upgrading the potholed streets.
Ngesi said, “It is unfair. It is unconstitutional, because water is a constitutional right”.
He raised an important question about how the water crisis is affecting local businesses, “Can you imagine during Festival when we have visitors, our businesses and hotels do not have water?”
The Archbishop said that last week, it had been particularly hot but there was no water for the children. “Can you imagine? When they want to drink water, there is no water. The taps are dry”.
The leaders of the march had made a concerted effort not to politicise the event, but it was hard to ignore the almost complete absence of the ruling party contrasted with the stoic presence of the opposition. DA Councillor, Xolani Madyo, did not participate in the march but with his foot in a cast, he managed to hobble around Church Square.
Leader of the DA caucus in the Makana Council, Cllr Luvuyo Sizani said, “This is a protest against the non-service delivery issues in Makana – issues of water, issues of corruption, issues of non-accountability. So the residents of Makana decided to take it upon themselves to show their dissatisfaction to the mayor, the Speaker and the Manager of the municipality”.
Asked whether the protest would make any difference, Sizani responded, “Seeing the arrogance that we’ve seen before, I’m not too sure, but maybe in the wider spectrum, it will have an impact”.
Inclement weather and work commitments kept many unhappy residents away from the march. The march was, after all, set for 10am on a weekday.
It is also possible that some Makhanda residents had taken seriously the fake WhatsApp messages that were circulating suggesting that the march had been cancelled.
THE HERALD
More pictures by Steven Lang here:
