BOKAMOSO
Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (Port Elizabeth) has become a sacrificial lamb, strapped to the altar of EFF political expediency and awaiting slaughter. The story of this metro decisively debunks the notion that the EFF fights for the poor in SA. On the contrary, the EFF cares so little for the plight of the poor that they would remove a government that has worked incredibly hard to deliver material improvements to the lives of residents who have been neglected for years.
The EFF has called for a motion of no confidence in NMB Mayor Athol Trollip, scheduled for 29 March 2018. The reason given? According to EFF leader Julius Malema, it is “punishment” for the DA’s opposition to land expropriation without compensation, and “because the mayor of PE is a white man”.
He may think that in so doing, the EFF is “cutting the throat of whiteness”. But the real outcome will be to hurt the poorest communities of NMB, which suffered extraordinary neglect under the ANC administration, pre-2016.
This neglect is detailed in Crispian Olver’s book “How to steal a city”, which exposes the rot, corruption and complete state capture that hollowed out the city’s administration, denying its poorest residents even the most basic of services.