EMPTY GESTURE: The seats that would have been occupied by opposition party councillors stand empty at the special council meeting held at Nangoza Jebe Hall to elect the new metro mayor, deputy mayor and chief whip. Picture: MIKE HOLMES
THE DA refused on Thursday May 28 to go to New Brighton to attend the special council meeting, where Danny Jordaan was to be elected the new mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay metro.
The DA shepherded on the eve of the council meeting its lackeys from the so-called opposition black caucus, in the form of the UDM and COPE, into the DA’s offices. There they formulated tactics against the council meeting.
Subsequently, the entire opposition boycotted the meeting.
DA caucus chief whip Gustav Rautenbach, the councillor for Ward 8, sent an e-mail on Tuesday May 26, to council speaker Maria Hermans. In that communication, the DA chief whip raised some concerns that the council meeting was going to be held at Nangoza Jebe Hall in New Brighton.
What is quite nauseating in his arguments is the following: “We further wish to place on record that we understand that a certain faction of the ruling party will be protesting at the Nangoza Jebe Hall on Thursday 28 May 2015. Our DA councillors will not attend the meeting at this venue unless the speaker guarantees in writing that no harm shall befall anybody.”
You need to go back some centuries in the annals of the history of South Africa, the colonial times, better for you to understanding the DA’s fears. What Rautenbach was actually saying was that his members could not go to the township because they had picked up information that “the natives are restless” and, therefore, their members would be harmed by the “native hordes”.
The DA does not want programmes in the townships. They fear the “native hordes”.
To it, township voters are mere fodder, available to the DA as grist for its mill. They vote DA today and tomorrow the DA has no use for them.
In her written response, Hermans assured Rautenbach of appropriate security measures that would be in place. No, the DA does not trust the “native hordes”.
Its view was that those blacks were “restless” and would be a problem for those who live in the suburbs. And the UDM and COPE minions? What was their argument?
They said the ANC would use the occasion to showcase its might. So what? If all of them combined had the necessary support in the township, why did they not bring out that support to show really who is popular among our people?
Fact is, the ANC is the people’s organisation and the ANC will always argue for proper service delivery to all our people. Working together with the municipality, we are going to ensure that the lives of the people in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro are changed for the better through adequate, deliberately planned service delivery to our people.
We shall ensure that the council organises regular interactive programmes where it will go to brief all our people, across the metro, on the metro’s delivery projects and officials render themselves open to question-and-answer sessions. Council meetings will be held across the metro, in the townships and in the suburbs.
Others, of course, will be held in the council chambers.
The Freedom Charter enjoins us to create conditions for the people to govern. What we are explaining is a programme for the people to be part of the processes of governance in our country.
We shall protect all residents in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro from those who want to define them as “native hordes” and who want to marginalise those they have defined as “the restless natives”.
By the way, the special council meeting on Thursday was not the first time that council meetings have happened at Nangoza Jebe. More council meetings are going to happen there as well as in Despatch, Uitenhage and everywhere else in the metro.
It must also be known that the only people who demonstrated outside the Nangoza Jebe Hall were a handful of DA supporters. The media must have seen them.
It must also be known that driving the DA’s boycott of the council meeting, albeit behind the scenes, was the DA hopeful for mayor of the metro, Athol Trollip. The ANC move to field Jordaan for the position of mayor was a master stroke, which has pushed Trollip into a deep sense of despair. Charles Nqakula, MP, convener,
The DA shepherded on the eve of the council meeting its lackeys from the so-called opposition black caucus, in the form of the UDM and COPE, into the DA’s offices. There they formulated tactics against the council meeting.
Subsequently, the entire opposition boycotted the meeting.
DA caucus chief whip Gustav Rautenbach, the councillor for Ward 8, sent an e-mail on Tuesday May 26, to council speaker Maria Hermans. In that communication, the DA chief whip raised some concerns that the council meeting was going to be held at Nangoza Jebe Hall in New Brighton.
What is quite nauseating in his arguments is the following: “We further wish to place on record that we understand that a certain faction of the ruling party will be protesting at the Nangoza Jebe Hall on Thursday 28 May 2015. Our DA councillors will not attend the meeting at this venue unless the speaker guarantees in writing that no harm shall befall anybody.”
You need to go back some centuries in the annals of the history of South Africa, the colonial times, better for you to understanding the DA’s fears. What Rautenbach was actually saying was that his members could not go to the township because they had picked up information that “the natives are restless” and, therefore, their members would be harmed by the “native hordes”.
The DA does not want programmes in the townships. They fear the “native hordes”.
To it, township voters are mere fodder, available to the DA as grist for its mill. They vote DA today and tomorrow the DA has no use for them.
In her written response, Hermans assured Rautenbach of appropriate security measures that would be in place. No, the DA does not trust the “native hordes”.
Its view was that those blacks were “restless” and would be a problem for those who live in the suburbs. And the UDM and COPE minions? What was their argument?
They said the ANC would use the occasion to showcase its might. So what? If all of them combined had the necessary support in the township, why did they not bring out that support to show really who is popular among our people?
Fact is, the ANC is the people’s organisation and the ANC will always argue for proper service delivery to all our people. Working together with the municipality, we are going to ensure that the lives of the people in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro are changed for the better through adequate, deliberately planned service delivery to our people.
We shall ensure that the council organises regular interactive programmes where it will go to brief all our people, across the metro, on the metro’s delivery projects and officials render themselves open to question-and-answer sessions. Council meetings will be held across the metro, in the townships and in the suburbs.
Others, of course, will be held in the council chambers.
The Freedom Charter enjoins us to create conditions for the people to govern. What we are explaining is a programme for the people to be part of the processes of governance in our country.
We shall protect all residents in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro from those who want to define them as “native hordes” and who want to marginalise those they have defined as “the restless natives”.
By the way, the special council meeting on Thursday was not the first time that council meetings have happened at Nangoza Jebe. More council meetings are going to happen there as well as in Despatch, Uitenhage and everywhere else in the metro.
It must also be known that the only people who demonstrated outside the Nangoza Jebe Hall were a handful of DA supporters. The media must have seen them.
It must also be known that driving the DA’s boycott of the council meeting, albeit behind the scenes, was the DA hopeful for mayor of the metro, Athol Trollip. The ANC move to field Jordaan for the position of mayor was a master stroke, which has pushed Trollip into a deep sense of despair. Charles Nqakula, MP, convener,
-ANC regional task team
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