Cape Town Fire: Let’s Point Fingers, Shall We?

The Land Party calls on the DA and the City of Cape Town to stop trying to pin the Cape Town fire on a poor homeless black man. This is a known DA strategy and it just does not rub anymore. You cannot continue to try and blame other people for the consequences of your actions.

Alderman JP Smit says that the increasing number of fires is the result of increasing densification around the urban edge of a nature reserve coupled with the homeless crisis. If that is the case, the DA run City of Cape Town (COCT) should be accepting full responsibility for the fire instead of blaming it on a “vagrant”.

Increasing densification is due to property developers, COCT, and the DA trying to squeeze as much life out of prime land as they can. The homeless crisis is due to the lack of appropriate housing development in the city. These are problems are caused by the City of Cape Town under the guidance of the DA.

Do they own up and adjust their strategies? No, they find some poor soul to blame.

The “vagrant” they claim admitted to starting the fire is actually a Tanzanian who came here to study and has nowhere to go. A human being without the resources to change his reality. A homeless person. A displaced person. Not a vagrant. His name is Clement Mangazo.

Mr Managazo is a victim of circumstance. Circumstances brought about by the old colonial leadership that still pervades our institutions and the minds of the city elders. The DA and the City of Cape Town are not the only ones to blame. The politicians, the aldermen, the councillors, the academics, the businessmen, and the heritage committees who continuously put personal gain before people are responsible.

From the old professors at UCT who don’t heed the advice of the bright young minds in their institution, to the city council who chase ‘vagrants’ out of the city and into the mountains, to the government officials who have stolen money that could provide our educational institutions and the National Parks board with the resources they need to manage their properties properly. You are all responsible.

You know that Table Mountain will burn. It has burned for millions of years. A burn was overdue. Unfortunately, because of decisions you made, the burn was not a controlled one. And now you want to place the blame on someone who has to live on the mountain because there is no place for the homeless, because home-affairs is backlogged, because your border control is ineffective, and because housing is unaffordable.

Shame on you.

END