OPEN LETTER TO TATA OMKHULU MANDELA ON NON-DEVELOPMENT
Non Development in the Community of Nelson Mandela
During the holidays I went to Eastern Cape, our home Qunu, made famous by your stature, tata omkhulu Mandela. For me it was heart breaking to see our people, especially the old, still needing to go to the bush or open fields to relieve themselves. To see that in Qunu there is no water and toilets; and that only those who can afford to install septic tanks had anything resembling basic services.
I subsequently attended a community meeting on 28/12/09 where we received a report of the situation in the area from the headman. He told us there were no real plans to develop the area, and that as the community they've lost trust in their ward councilor who came only once last year to the area during the General Elections. After promising them heaven and earth he disappeared with his name.
I felt morose and embarrassed seating in that meeting listening to old people benching their hopes on food parcels that never materialise as promised during electioneering. I heard things I thought I'll never hear again; old people, with rheumy eyes, saying things were much better under the Bantustan government.
I came out of the meeting with many questions:
1. Is it a deliberate ploy to allow the Former Transkei to collapse under the ANC government?
2. Does it not rub you the wrong way, tata omkhulu Mandela, when at home you discover your house is more like an oasis in the desert of poverty and misery?
3. Tata, whatever happened to the aspirations of the Freedom Charter that all shall share in the wealth of the nation? I'm not talking about complicated things here, like what the current ANC Youth League is talking about nationalising mines and all. I'm just referring to basic services: water and electricity.
4. I can assure you tata that Qunu is just typical of what is happening around the country in our rural areas.
5. I know you have other concerns now at your old age, but do you ever wake up at night and look outside your window to conclude that we've failed our people? Such things haunt me every time I visit my home.
The constitution guarantees clean water and sanitation to all, but it looks like only ingcungcu [the affluent] are able to afford that in our country. I've just read a piece that few years ago I'd have dismissed as sour grapes of those who have lost privilege in the new dispensation, but now I'm not sure. Its tone is all wrong, but the facts are indisputable. The author, Dale T. McKinley, is an independent writer, researcher, lecturer and political activist based in Johannesburg. Let me quote a few of his words:
When 2000 rolled around it heralded not only a once in a lifetime turn of a century but carried with it the delayed weight of the majority expectation of an age of progress and plenty.
The government has spent billions to build new stadiums and other infrastructure for tourists and a small domestic minority, but cannot ensure that school kids in the most needy of communities have decent soccer facilities and equipment.
Here in South Africa (and this applies equally to the public and private sectors) dishonesty and incompetence are either rewarded or simply ignored. With a few exceptions, those who expose and confront the truth - and who try to uphold collective and personal accountability - are punished, marginalised and labelled.
When lying, cheating and conscious ineptitude become standard "governance" practice (whatever the "sector"), we are in deep crisis.
I'm sure Tata you would agree with me that this makes for a grim read but is it false?
In our town of Umtata, the former capital and our pride, robots are forever not working because there's hardly any electricity most of the time; those that work are dysfunctional causing many to make accidents. As the results no one follows the traffic rules any longer.
Potholes are like dongas in the suburban areas. The twenty five litre plastic containers have become a necessary household material because the availability of water, in town, is arbitrary.
I ask what went wrong? During the time K.D. Mathandzima was the Prime Minister, and even during the military tenure of Bantu Holomisa, the town was very beautiful, fully maintained and clean. People had jobs. Then factories that created them closed down after 1994, because they were no longer subsidized and so could no longer cope with the competition from China, India, etc.
I don't subscribe to the school that says nothing can be down in these situations. It is not too much to expect basic services from your government when you are a citizen. Fencing national roads to avoid unnecessary accidents was something done effectively in the past there. Providing farming equipment to people produced irrigation schemes like Ncorha and Qamata that fed at least half the population around creating self-sufficient society. What is so difficult to replicate that now we've better resources?
Transkei does not enjoy the fruits of our democracy. Do you blame them when they come with these preposterous ideas of finding independent states like the one ybaThembu. Your people, tata, abaThembu, no longer feel like being part of South Africa you created since 1994, and want self determination or independence.
In conclusion, tata, I hope my letter does not upset you too much, but sometimes we need to take toll and assume responsibilities for our failures. We've failed our people. There's no other way of looking at it. I don't see the bunch that came after you doing things better, instead things seem to be going from bad to worse.
I wish you stronger health. May uQamata give you more suns to add to your days.
Kind regards,
Mbulelo Ncedana, MPL
Chairperson for the Congress of the People (Western Cape) in his personal capacity
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