The Minister of Human Settlements seems confused.

Pic: News24

Western Cape Minister of Human Settlements, Mr. Tertius Simmers, has arranged for community leaders from Zwelihle to have access to WiFi for a Zoom meeting in the Thusong Centre in Hawston, at 5 pm today.

Does he know that Hawston is 11km away from Zwelihle?

Does he know that it takes 2 hours and 10 minutes to walk to Hawston from Zwelihle?

Does he know there is no public transport after 6 pm?

Does he know that many people don’t have smartphones or laptops to connect to the WiFi?

Does he know that it will be much easier for people to walk the 45 minutes to the municipality?

It seems not. The Minister of Human Settlements appears to have no idea of what reality is like for the majority of South Africans and thinks he knows what kind of human settlement solutions these people need.

This meeting will be checked off as public participation has been done to make sure they get those clean audits, and they will move on swiftly with their plans. This is a typical DA modus operandi, particularly when it comes to property. It also indicates that they have not learned from the lessons of the past. One would think that after the protests of 2018 and the last two years of consultation, the DA government, and their ANC cronies in the Overstrand municipality, would have realised how imperative proper public participation is.

Two of the five pages of the notice of the meeting were sent by the municipality to Zwelihle stakeholders via email at around 1 pm on Tuesday 28th July giving just over 48 hours’ notice to invitees. All councilors, directors, and housing officers have been invited. Hopefully, unlike most of the meetings regarding human settlement issues in Zwelihle that have been held since the Minister’s last visit, one or two of them will attend. At the last meeting which was also attended by the National Human Settlement’s Rapid Response Team, one councilor bothered to show up, albeit over an hour late.

What are we paying these people for? How much are we paying them?

Not only is the government squandering money on bloated tenders and large salaries, but they’re also appointing people as public servants who are out of touch with the people, have non-existent organisational skills, and struggle to think out of the box.

At least he knows that Zwelihle has no access to public WiFi whatsoever.

South Africa deserves better leaders.