Three ANC Wards in Kouga march over ‘No Service’ delivery by KM

-Photos and Intro by Bev Mortimer–

A big crowd of residents from ANC Wards 1, 6 and 15 in Kouga Municipality marched from Kwanomzamo to the Kouga Municipality office in Humansdorp Main Street, yesterday morning and handed over a lengthy memorandum of demands and grievances to deputy mayor, Hattingh Bornman.

It was a legal march, well organised, with no violence and escorted by the SAPS and the Kouga Traffic police. Traffic came to standstill at some points to allow the marchers to march from St Francis Street up Main Street to the municipal offices. The friendly crowd of marchers sang freedom songs at length and danced, supported by pedestrians also dancing on the pavements.
Most marchers, dressed in bright and gay ANC colours and outfits, stood in a long line on the edge of the street, singing and dancing for almost an hour. They then moved round the corner and sat on the pavement in front of the municipal gates while one of their leaders, clr Phumzile Oliphant, addressed the crowd before handing over to ANC Branch Secretary Mfundiso Oliphant, who also spoke and then gave the memorandum to Bornman to sign.
Bornman also briefly addressed the crowd and said there would be a response and that people could contact the municipality for more info. The Kouga ANC leadership gave the KM a week to respond.

Here is the Memorandum Memorandum of Demands delivered to the Speaker of the Kouga Local Council, c/o deputy mayor, Hattingh Bornman, who addressed the marchers:

Since 2016 we observed with serious concern the deterioration of infrastructure in our ward Our human plight and dignity in general has reached an unpalatable state.
Therefore:
We the people of Kwa-Nomzamo Humansdorp hereby demand a commitment from the Kouga Local Municipality to attend to the challenges confronting our ward
We demand:

1. That the water crisis which has been in existence for more than two (2) years be attended with immediate effect
   1.1. That we the people of ward 6, 1 and 15, in particular the elderly, sick, students and workers live without water every day.
   We have for too long endured this situation hence we call on the Kouga Local Municipality to investigate the cause of this water crisis and address it so that the human dignity of our people is restored
2. That the condition of our streets is seriously bad and needs to be prioritised and be attended to.
3. We demand that the municipality starts a process of allocating sites to the people of Kwa-Nomzamo on the farms bought by the municipality
   That farm has turned into a white elephant whilst the people stay in informal settlements inhumane conditions
4. That the crime rate is high in our wards, and this is attributed to lack of functional streetlights
   That all dark spots in our ward be attended to in order to mitigate the crime factor
5. That we have been without a community hall in ward 6 for too long the community must travel to ward 15 for meetings
6. That the people from our different communities in 2019, were called to a meeting where a budget with different allocations per ward was presented for each informal settlement.
   We demand that the Municipality gives feedback to the community on the kind of toilets that will be built and take through all informal settlements affected on the changes of the 2019 decisions.
7. In Lower Golf Course (Section called “K”) the people are living without water, electricity and toilets.
   We demand that the Municipality begins a process of changing the living conditions of our people in that area.
8. There are sites which were formalised but to date the people in Lower Golf Course still do not have ERF numbers.
   We demand that the Housing Department issue those ERF numbers to our people as soon as possible.
9. We have noticed that for anyone to get employed by the Municipality they are first told to join the DA or else they will not get employed.
   That there are two category of casuals those who get R3500 belonging to other organisations and those who get R9000 belonging to the DA
   We demand that the Municipality employs everyone without looking at which party are they affiliated to but employ people because of the skills and qualifications they possess.
   We further demand that all casuals be treated equal and receive the same salaries.
10. The community of Golf Course in Ward 15 have been requesting for several times to meet with their Ward Councillor for them to be able to raise their challenges and their living conditions to him but he always has excuses not to meet with them
    We demand the Councillor to serve all his people regardless of their skin colour.
11. Every time when we are approaching the winter season the houses of the people in informal settlements (especially Golf Course and Phola Park) always get affected by floods especially it rains excessively and their appliances gets damaged.
    We demand that the Municipality to make the necessary arrangements of making sure that this year our people in informal settlements do not experience this disaster.
12. The Municipality is quiet or doesn’t care about our people when it comes to developing Kwa-Nomzamo especially Housing Development
    We therefore demand that the Municipality begins a process of applying for Houses for the entire Kwa-Nomzamo
13. The state of our Sport fields is a call for concern as young people are not able use them, we believe that upgrading these facilities would play a significant role in addressing the challenges young people face daily
    We demand that the Municipality begins a process of upgrading these facilities and conduct oversight on the standard to which they are upgraded.